A Brilliant Musical-Comedy Thing, with Serious Intentions

A Brilliant Musical-Comedy Thing,
with Serious Intentions

Every Brilliant Thing’s Jonny Donahoe Is Back
with Jonny & The Baptists,
Again Benefitting New Beginnings

By Josef Woodard | October 9, 2025

Read more of the our Fall Theater Preview here.

Three years ago, a very unique and audience-engaging theatrical project took over Center Stage, in the form of Jonny Donahoe’s globally acclaimed Every Brilliant Thing. Through a clever and often humor-laced structure of a character (based on himself) enumerating reasons to live to his mother, Donahoe’s inventive piece manages to address the ever more relevant topic of depression and reclaiming one’s sense of mental grounding. At the play’s end, the audience is drawn into the process by revealing their own “brilliant things.”

Fittingly, the show benefited the local mental health organization New Beginnings, renowned for providing counseling for low-income residents on a sliding scale fee scale. Executive Director Kristine Schwarz explains, “At New Beginnings, we believe in the power of storytelling to address complex social issues like mental illness and homelessness. Through engaging narratives, we can break down the psychological barriers that often prevent individuals from understanding or acting on those issues.”

New Beginnings will again be the recipient of a special fundraising event when Donahoe returns for special nights as part of the organization’s annual benefit dinner and performances October 23-26. The festivities include the U.S. premiere of Jonny & The Baptists, a satirical and tuneful musical-serio-comic act in cahoots with partner Paddy Gervers. The duo comes to Santa Barbara fresh off a five-week tour in the U.K. and a performance at the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, with a show based on a 10-year research study called The Happiness Index (Oct. 23, 25). In addition, Donahoe will bring back the now internationally acclaimed Every Brilliant Thing (Oct. 24, 26). All performances take place at Center Stage Theater.

I checked in with Donahoe for an update.

Jonny & The Baptists will have its U.S. premiere in Santa Barbara. Is there a particular connection you have with Santa Barbara, and the New Beginnings program?

There is indeed. We love Santa Barbara. We were fortunate enough to work with New Beginnings in 2022, and it was a beautiful and utterly heartwarming experience to get to meet and work with such gifted, warm, generous people. The two of us have worked with a number of charities tackling homelessness and mental health support back home, and New Beginnings is such an excellent charity.

To be trusted to travel halfway across the world to share what we do with New Beginnings and the people of Santa Barbara is a real honor. Your astonishingly beautiful city welcomed us with open arms last time around. We are buzzing for round two.

Can you give me a thumbnail history of Jonny & The Baptists? Was this something that started as a lark and grew into something much bigger?

You’ve read us like a book there. We’d skirted around each other for years whilst we were doing other projects and were both huge admirers of each other’s work. At long last, we ended up sitting next to each other at a wedding and got talking over a combination of far too many bottles of wine and not being able to be on the dance floor — myself because of a sore foot, Paddy through total lack of interest or skill in dancing. 

By the end of the night, we decided to start a theatrical-musical-comedy act. Before we knew if we had a gig and thereby — crucially — deadline, we put together our first-ever set, and that gig led to another gig, which, through a series of misunderstandings and booking errors, led to our third gig: headlining a major arts festival in Croatia. That was nearly 15 years ago, and we’ve been doing this ever since.

Who are the Baptists?

Well, it’s slightly confusing. I suppose Paddy is the Baptists? Or maybe we both are? It’s unclear. We went through a number of very odd names for our double-act/theatre-company, but landed on Jonny & The Baptists because we thought it would be a good joke that Paddy was somehow plural. We were going to change it to something that made slightly more sense, but by that stage, we’d already booked a tour and got some badges made, and now it’s far too late.

Did this begin life as a conscious merger of comedy, music, social commentary, and other elements — and were there role models for it?

Initially, we intended to create musical comedy that was funny enough to be as good as pure stand-up and musically strong enough to just have good songs in their own right. We began to then shift more and more into blending this with theater so we could keep challenging ourselves and keep playing with the form.

When we started, we knew we wanted to be political and socially engaged but without sacrificing the silliness and joy that underpins our relationship, and that has very much become the core of our partnership. Our shows have covered everything from climate change to inequality, grief, the pandemic, and even the life and work of Andrew Lloyd-Webber. 

We want to stay eclectic in what we stage and remain interested in the world around us, and that is in no small part thanks to some of the wonderful artists who paved the way. We absolutely love Eddie Izzard, John Oliver, Flight of the Conchords, Simon Pegg, Richard Ayoade, Gina Yashere, Tracey Ullman … the list goes on.

You have had a symbiotic relationship with the Edinburgh Festival, which makes sense given the theatrical and comedic aspects of what you do/who you are, versus a more traditional musical performance situation. Is that fair to say?

Absolutely. We have been doing the Fringe together since 2012, and it is the perfect place to experiment and hone a piece of work amongst some of the world’s best and most unusual writers and performers. It encourages artists to push their boundaries and create shows which are hard to define or blend mediums, and we always come out the other end of it with a show ready for national and international touring. It’s a funny thing that the biggest arts festival in the world ended up in our native Scotland, but one we’re very glad of.

I was just enjoying your “attempt at a TikTok,” a great bunch of miniature skits (one of my favorites: “You’re so vague, I can’t tell if this song is about you…”). It seems like the very attention-deficit nature of that medium gave you a form to work in. Are conventional wisdoms and cultural forms ripe for revisionism in your world?

We do think everything should be up for discussion in the arts, especially the emergence of social media and the gradual decay of our attention, our concentration, our inability to … hmmm. Sorry, just a second…. Right, where were we? Wait…. What were you saying? Sorry, we got distracted by a shiny object over there and forgot the question. What were you saying again? Shall I put Netflix on? Let’s order waffles!

You have brushed up against some real-world backlash through your work, as with the “Stop UKIP” phenom, with Paul Nuttall’s seething, Trump-like reaction. Is that kind of a response a sign of success?

A massive response is always a sign of some kind of success, we agree. But we always want the audience to think, laugh, and emote — to listen and engage and come away wanting to know more, think more, all those sorts of things. The issue with Paul Nuttall’s seething response to our show Stop UKIP was that his response came despite the fact he never saw the show. 

He was actually pretty clueless about what we were talking about, and that’s why he ended up looking so foolish in the press. His schtick was that free speech was the cornerstone of his political agenda, and then he tried to get our show banned without ever seeing it. It’s such an obvious own goal. Obviously, it ended up selling us a lot of tickets. But we’d rather he had come along and engaged with the work and maybe talked to us. Because dialogue and sharing and working together is the key to a better world, and that’s all we want.

You made a huge impact with your performance of Every Brilliant Thing here back in 2022 — and which you will reprise this time around when in town. How has that show evolved for you, and has it grown beyond your initial expectations — in terms of popularity but also therapeutic results?

I mean, it has grown so far beyond my wildest expectations. When we started, we thought it would run for three weeks and then be over…. Now it’s been performed all over the world in every continent — except Antarctica, unfortunately — and translated into over 30 different languages. It’s an honor, and an incredible thing. I’m so proud of the show and delighted that our little piece of work has had this incredible life and continues to entertain and help people all over the world. It’s an absolute blessing to have something that has resonated so much, and which continues to build and grow.

Both you and Paddy have made public your own personal struggles with mental illness. Do you feel a certain missionary zeal in addressing related topics in your shows?

Mental health has always been at the heart of what we do together. I wouldn’t say that we set out to raise awareness or anything like that initially; however, the two of us have always been very open about our feelings and battles, and so it began to naturally suffuse into our work. Much like in our real lives, the way we try to speak about hard topics like depression or trauma is through a lens of laughter, joy, and honesty. 

Our shows contain heavy themes and moments, but they are never without levity and always try to balance light with shade. It is always our intention for people to leave our shows feeling like they are not alone, and to be able to carry some of that openness away with them in an uplifting way.

Has that intention grown more important given the rise of mental illness issues in the wake of COVID, climate change, and other corrosive elements of life in the current moment (take, for instance, in the White House, on this side of the pond)?

It’s more vital than ever before. We are all in a difficult position right now. That is universal. Mental health struggles, loneliness, and fear are at an all-time high amidst the current state of the world, and it’s all of our duties to carry on and, crucially, look after each other. 

In our work, our relationship and friendship is paramount because it’s one of the ways in which the two of us cope. COVID in particular was a huge shift in our work, as we were simultaneously trying to stay afloat, create, and keep each other going every single day — and we feel that playful, loving support for one another is really clearly displayed in our current show.

Is there a particular satisfaction attached to the work you’re doing for a program like New Beginnings, and others like it around the world?

Absolutely. A large amount of what we create is based around societal concerns, kindness, and interpersonal relationships, and we try to do as much research and outreach as we can both whilst making the work itself, and then in how we tour it. We always endeavor to connect and partner with nonprofit organizations and charities when embarking on a new project, and the experience is invaluable.

There are many barriers to the arts, and building something open and accessible to everyone is vital for the arts to engage with and champion those who may need help or support. New Beginnings have been utterly wonderful in working alongside us, teaching us and doing absolutely everything in their power to actually care for their community. That’s exactly the sort of example and message that we love being a part of.

What’s next for the Baptists?

The sky’s the limit, we hope. We are utterly delighted to be given the opportunity to perform in Santa Barbara and would love to tour the U.S.A. with a new show. Back in the U.K., we’re looking at a whole host of new ideas and concepts at the moment, ranging from an interactive children’s detective show, a two-man musical adaptation of Dante’s Inferno, a new album is on the horizon, and we’re about to start on a documentary series about finding happiness in the darkest times. 

It’s all go, and we’re going to keep doing our best, together, one day at a time.

See sbnbcc.org/new-beginnings-2025-annual-fundraiser for tickets and more information.

A shorter version of this story appeared in print.