![\"Daniel](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1_0228_Daniel-Radcliffe-in-EVERY-BRILLIANT-THING-c-Matthew-Murphy.jpg\" "\\"Review")
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Daniel Radcliffe in \u201cEvery Brilliant Thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Photo by Matthew Murphy<\/p>\n
Fresh off his Tony Award\u2013winning performance in the Broadway revival of \u201cMerrily We Roll Along,\u201d Daniel Radcliffe has returned to the Hudson Theatre with something far smaller in scale but no less demanding: a one-person play that depends almost entirely on his ability to connect with a room full of strangers.<\/p>\n
The show is \u201cEvery Brilliant Thing,\u201d Duncan Macmillan and Jonny Donahoe\u2019s widely performed solo play about a person who begins compiling a list of life\u2019s small joys after his mother attempts suicide. Since premiering more than a decade ago, the piece has been staged around the world in dozens of countries and venues large and small. It previously ran Off-Broadway at the intimate Barrow Street Theatre, where it was later filmed for HBO with Donahoe as the performer.<\/p>\n
The premise is deceptively simple. As a child trying to make sense of his mother\u2019s severe depression, the narrator begins writing down everything that makes life worth living. The earliest entries reflect a child\u2019s perspective \u2014 ice cream, water fights, staying up past bedtime \u2014 but the list grows alongside the narrator\u2019s life, gradually encompassing friendships, love, music, books, and countless small pleasures that accumulate across adulthood.<\/p>\n
The list becomes both the framework of the story and a coping mechanism \u2014 a way for the narrator to push back against despair even as he struggles to understand his mother\u2019s recurring mental illness.<\/p>\n What distinguishes \u201cEvery Brilliant Thing\u201d from a typical solo show is the way it unfolds in collaboration with the audience. Before the performance formally begins, Radcliffe mingles through the crowd introducing himself and handing out numbered cards. Each card corresponds to an item on the narrator\u2019s ever-growing list, which audience members read aloud when called upon during the show. Spectators are also occasionally recruited to portray figures from the narrator\u2019s life \u2014 his father, a school counselor, a romantic partner, even the veterinarian who euthanizes the family dog.<\/p>\n The result is a hybrid of storytelling, improvisation, and communal participation in which each performance develops its own rhythms and surprises.\n<\/p>\n For its Broadway debut, the production wisely preserves the intimacy that defined earlier stagings. The Hudson Theatre has effectively been arranged to recreate the closeness of the Barrow Street Theatre experience. Some audience members sit onstage alongside those in the auditorium, surrounding the playing area and becoming part of the performance environment.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/9_0597_Daniel-Radcliffe-in-EVERY-BRILLIANT-THING-c-Matthew-Murphy.jpg\" "\\"Review")
<\/a>Daniel Radcliffe in \u201cEvery Brilliant Thing.\u201dPhoto by Matthew Murphy<\/p>\n
![\"Daniel](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/4_1087c_Daniel-Radcliffe-in-EVERY-BRILLIANT-THING-c-Matthew-Murphy.jpg\" "\\"Review")
<\/a>Daniel Radcliffe in \u201cEvery Brilliant Thing.\u201dPhoto by Matthew Murphy<\/p>\n