Mrs. Brown's Boys

Mrs Brown's Boys going back on tour in 2015

Mrs Brown's Boys is heading back on the road in 2015 with a huge arena tour in the spring, summer and winter.

Plans for Mrs Brown spin-off show based at hairdressers

Gary Hollywood will be the mainstay of a spin-off comedy set inside Wash & Blow, the fictional hair salon in Mrs Brown's Boys. Writer Brendan O'Carroll will also star as shop owner Mario while Rory Cowan will continue as Dino's husband Rory Brown.

Mrs Brown's Boys tops 5m DVD sales

Mrs Brown has not only conquered British TV - she's now a worldwide superstar with DVD sales topping five million.

"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.

Mrs Brown's Boys quiz

Award-winning BBC1 comedy Mrs Brown's Boys is one of the most popular sitcoms on TV. Test your knowledge.

In defence of Mrs Brown's Boys

Forget the fact it's universally loathed by snobbish critics, Mrs Brown's Boys makes me laugh. Get over it.

Gary Hollywood on Mrs. Brown's Boys meteoric rise

The 34-year-old actor from Glasgow admits he's gobsmacked at the show's rise to fame as talks for a sequel to the film begin before the first one is even out.

The nun who inspired TV's most X-rated comedy

As the hit critics love to hate scoops another award, here is the very unlikely story of the show's inspiration.

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.