Duncan Macmillan is an award-winning writer and director. Plays include: Lungs (Paines Plough/Sheffield Crucible and Studio Theatre Washington D.C.), Platform (Old Vic Tunnels), Monster (Royal Exchange/Manchester International Festival), The Most Humane Way to Kill A Lobster (Theatre 503), I Wish To Apologise For My Part In The Apocalypse, So Say All of Us and Family Tree (all BBC Radio 4). Formerly Writer-in-Residence at Paines Plough and the Royal Exchange, he has completed attachments at the National Theatre and the Royal Court/BBC, is a member of the Old Vic New Voices Company and a fellow of the TS Eliot UK/US Exchange. He is the winner of two Bruntwood Playwriting Awards, the Old Vic Big Ambition Award, a Pearson Residency Award, 'The 50' Bursary, and has been nominated in the Best New Play category of the TMA and MEN Awards.

"Every Brilliant Thing finds a perfect balance between conveying the struggles of life, and celebrating all that is sweet in it." - The Independent

"What Macmillan offers, with great sensitivity behind the abundant laughs, is a child's fierce, flawed attempt to make sense of adult unhappiness and a meditation on the shadow that a loved one's depression casts over the lives of a family." - Evening Standard (London)

"Every Brilliant Thing is sad, but it is also gloriously funny and exceptionally warm. It's a show that spells out a little of what depression can do to people, but it also highlights the irrepressible resilience of the human spirit." - Time Out London

Publisher: Concord Theatricals

Pub date: 2026-03-20