The latest production in our Magazine Studio Theatre season was, “Every Brilliant Thing” by Duncan MacMillan.

The play follows the journey of a character that begins a list of `Every Brilliant Thing’, everything worth living for, in order to cheer up her mum who suffers from suicidal depression. She begins the list at age seven, the list includes things like ice cream and rollercoasters. As she grows up and experiences life, the list develops to include many of life’s little and big joys such as “really good oranges’ and “falling in love”.

The play was directed by Christian Santos and performed by Tanya Santini McClelland. It is a one-woman show but relied heavily on audience participation. The play is highly interactive, with audience members given items on the list to read out when their number was called and members of the audience, playing at times, different characters in the narrator’s life. On both sold-out nights the audience reacted wonderfully to the interaction, resulting in many comedic moments that had the whole theatre laughing.

The play was set in the round, which provided the perfect environment for Santini to be able to be close to the audience, sit amongst them, talk to them directly and create an atmosphere in which the whole audience were involved in her life story. A story which dealt with depression and suicide but also the joys of life and the search to find happiness in the little things we experience in our every day life.

The Magazine Studio Theatre is very proud to have presented a different kind of interactive theatre to Gibraltar and wishes to thank everyone who came to see it and participated and helped to make it a success.