Brendan O'Carroll

"Crass, backwards-looking and unfunny," goes the critical consensus on Brendan O'Carroll's feck-flecked sitcom. But what if the critics are on the wrong side of history on this one, like they were with Zeppelin, or the Opal Fruits to Starburst name change? What if Mrs Brown's Boys is actually the platonic ideal of what comedy can and should be? Consider the evidence: here's a show that recognises that a man being assaulted with a rectal thermometer is funnier than any long-winded witticism could ever be; here's a show that offers up a truly progressive family at its centre: a matriarch in drag whose eldest son is out and proud and whose youngest is a model example of the rehabilitative qualities of prison (he's married and has found gainful employment dressing up as a penguin); here's a show that started out on stage and moved to screen, and as such is, arguably, the closest thing our generation has to Play For Today; here's a show that exhibits a flair for fourth-wall-breaking self-awareness - fluffed lines left in the final edit, Mrs Brown directly acknowledging a camera that has strayed into shot - that meta wannabe Arrested Development would kill for; most tellingly, here's a show that regularly attracts 9m viewers at a time when TV audiences are dwindling. Have 9m people ever been wrong? I mean, that's probably the same amount of people that voted for Ukip.

Graham Linehan: The Walshes is no Mrs Brown's Boys

The Father Ted creator is hoping his new sitcom The Walshes will not be compared with Brendan O'Carroll's hit - and says he was "never really a big fan" of O'Carroll's work.

Brendan O'Carrol: I want to write another series

Mrs Brown's Boys will "definitely" return for another series, star and creator Brendan O'Carroll has said.

Mrs Brown's Boys wins best Comedy at NTAs 2014

Brendan O'Carroll's BBC One sitcom beat Ricky Gervais's Derek, Miranda Hart's BBC One comedy and US import The Big Bang Theory.

Mrs Brown's Boys creator: Screw the critics!

Brendan O'Carroll says he doesn't care about negative reviews as Mrs Brown's Boys wins its second NTA in a row.

No new episodes of Mrs Brown's Boys for at least a year

Fans of hit comedy Mrs Brown's Boys will have to wait a whole year for a new series because the show is too popular. Gary Hollywood, who stars in the show, said creator Brendan O'Carroll is too busy to write new material.

It's New Year's Eve in Agnes's house and there's a lot of funny business going on. The main thread revolves around her plan to stop grandson Bono being enrolled in the infamous local primary school, but along the way she takes in a homeless parrot with an extraordinary vocabulary, there's a severe new priest, Father McBride, to get the better of, and Dermot and Buster dress up as Laurel and Hardy.

There's another of those priceless "Rory, why are you so down?" moments, where the actor Rory Cowan is tricked on set and reduced to helpless giggles. But as is so often the case, the funniest scenes involve just Agnes and her mate Winnie (Brendan O'Carroll's real-life sister, Eilish). They muck about in the kitchen with a canister of "hellenium" gas bought for the balloons, and engage in vulgar but hysterical antics involving pine spray, glue and the effects of a curry.

Mrs Brown's Boys somehow garnered the biggest average audience on Christmas Day. My only explanation is that, after the festive EastEnders, the nation as a whole fell asleep and left their televisions on as I can't see anybody finding Brendan O'Carroll's drag act in the least bit amusing.

I feel that O'Carroll's biggest audience must be the elderly who still find gags about mechanically-operated Christmas trees funny. Indeed the big comic set pieces in this year's festive special involved Mrs Brown getting a new tree that she could operate using a remote control which she inevitably got stuck on by the end of the episode. The other running joke was that Mrs Brown got ultra-competitive when playing Christmas games and was incredibly aggrieved when her rival Hilary (Susie Blake) guessed 'Silence of the Limbs' to a charade clue.

Just like with the obvious humour in Vicious, Mrs Brown's Boys takes all the suggestion out of the character by having her swear every thirty seconds. I feel the vulgarity in Mrs Brown's Boys is often uneccessary and only exists to get cheap laughs from the sitcom's easily-pleased audience.

Now I'm not someone who's opposed to old-fashioned comedy, as you can see from my review of Not Going Out, but I like it to be at least a little bit funny. Again, just like Vicious, I didn't laugh once while watching Mrs Brown's Boys and I just can't see why almost nine and half million of you tuned in to watch this atrociously awful so-called comedy.