Brendan O'Carroll

Brendan O'Carroll interview

Back by popular demand, the surprise comedy hit of 2011 gets a Christmas special followed by a new series. So why has Mrs Brown's Boys been such a success? TV Choice asks creator Brendan O'Carroll for his thoughts...

Brendan O'Carroll interview

Brendan O'Carroll's Mrs Brown's Boys burst on to TV screens earlier this year, causing a bit of a stir. Outraging many critics, but pleasing many millions of viewers, it proved a ratings hit with its outrageous gags and gloriously rude language.

Brendan O'Carroll says Mrs Brown stopped him going bust

It has been the most controversial television comedy in years and even the man behind Mrs Brown's Boys can't quite believe it is favourite to win a BAFTA.

As we've mentioned before, if you're faint hearted this won't be for you.

For the antics of Agnes Brown and her brood are among the funniest on television, but the language they use is certainly not the cleanest.

As the all too short series comes to a climax tonight, this is the last chance to see Brendan O'Carroll as his wickedly witty alter ego Mrs Brown - unless you're getting tickets for his live stage show this summer.

Tonight, Agnes thinks everyone has gone mad - Father Quinn is losing his faith as fast as he loses parishioners, newlyweds Dermot and Maria won't stop fighting, and Grandad has decided he'd like to witness his own funeral.

He's keen to hear all the nice things people will say about him while he's still alive to enjoy them.

So when the Browns decide to make Grandad happy by secretly staging his funeral, you may die laughing.

Despite his critics, Brendan O'Carroll's comedy's a hit

Brendan O'Carroll is still groggy from sleep. It's mid-morning in Toronto, but teatime here in Glasgow, the city to which the comedian insists he owes his success. Over a crystal-clear line, we share a nostalgia for the crackle of transatlantic static, he explains why BBC1's new hit comedy show, Mrs Brown's Boys, was forged in Scotland's biggest city.

Brendan O'Carroll's offbeat Irish sitcom continues. In this episode, Agnes (O'Carroll) and Winnie (Eilish O'Carroll) are disappointed not to be invited to Maria Nicholson's (Fiona O'Carroll) hen party, but decide to crash it anyway. A hit in Ireland but, so far, its hard to understand why.

Mrs Brown's Boys: mainstream comedy for the middle-aged

Part of me wonders what the BBC was thinking with Mrs Brown's Boys - another part can't help laughing at Brendan O'Carroll's old-fashioned sitcom.

More potty-mouthed panto from Brendan O'Carroll and his updated Old Mother Riley act. Meddling ratbag Agnes Brown ("I was so long in labour they had to shave me twice") thinks her children are keeping too many secrets from her, such as the real reason why Mark's wife has kicked him out of the house. As usual, the earthy antics are offset by a sentimental streak as thick as your arm. We have come to fecking hug and learn, after all.

Mrs Brown's Boys: TV Sitcom Review

New to the BBC is Brendan O'Carroll's long running stage creation Mrs Brown's Boys. A sitcom which features Brendan himself dragged up as an old Irish mother of six. The show will grab the headlines initially for its language as a lot of the humour features Mrs Brown's incredibly course ramblings being saturated in Fecks and Fucks. Somehow this language pleases the real live studio audience but how I'm not exactly sure.

Mrs Brown's Boys isn't so much a sitcom as a full frontal assault on the senses. It is raucous, vulgar, sentimental, loud, infantile, audacious, irreverent, outrageous, inane, frequently frustrating and often hilarious. The jokes come thick and fast, with several circumventing quality control en route and at least one - a naked hand being described as "Sooty in the nude" - deserving a place in the annals of comedy history.

Star and writer Brendan O'Carroll dons drag for the title role - an Irish mammy forever interfering in her adult children's lives. He/she is on screen throughout and it's fair to describe the performance as all-embracing, leaving the supporting cast with little to do but stand, stare and sometimes suppress giggles.

There is an unapologetically old-fashioned, almost music hall, feel to proceedings, with O'Carroll embracing the proud cross-dressing traditions of Les Dawson, Old Mother Riley and the Two Ronnies, but with added profanity.

In another post-modern twist the show deliberately assumes all the conventions of the traditional studio-based TV sitcom, then takes great pleasure in subverting them. Mrs Brown crosses over sets, talks to the camera and even admonishes the live audience for rendering a sympathetic sigh ("It's a man in a dress, for feck's sake").

Episode one left me fully entertained but slightly shell-shocked, harbouring serious doubts that it can sustain such a high level of manic energy for an entire series. We shall just have to wait and see if Mrs Brown wins our hearts, or wears us out.