I don’t know how the BBC can justify keeping Mrs Brown’s Boys
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A few years ago, I tried watching Mrs Brown’s Boys, eager to figure out exactly what the appeal was for the millions of people who watch the show every Christmas and New Year. I lasted 10 minutes. There were pratfalls. A criminally overused laugh track. Endless streams of expletives masquerading as jokes.
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It was… rough. To me, its broad comedy lands far more irritating than endearing, and I was left straight-faced watching the titular character doing three spittakes in a row during a visit to the pub. I’m not alone – it’s long been a critical disaster and has been panned as the ‘worst comedy ever made’.
How its live studio audience, and its viewers at home, stay entertained is beyond me. But this year, my confusion stepped up a few notches. I might not have enjoyed seeing Mrs Brown’s Boys on TV every Christmas, but its inclusion in this year’s primetime schedule is insulting – as the actions of its central star earlier this year should have been the death knell for ‘Mammy’ and her sons.
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The show, created by and starring comic Brendan O’Carroll, centres around a sweary Dublin matriarch (O’Carroll in drag) whose family and neighbours are constantly popping into her kitchen or living room for slapstick ‘hilarity’. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video.
Up Next. But in October, news emerged that O’Carroll, 69, made a quip alluding to a ‘racial term’, while improvising as Mrs Brown during rehearsals – with Daily Mail reporting he had said: ‘I don’t call a spade a spade, I call a spade a-’, before starting to say the N-word and being cut off by another character.
