The joke is over – get Mrs Brown’s Boys off the BBC
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If lessons have been learnt from Brendan O’Carroll’s racism controversy earlier this year, it’s not immediately clear what they are. But though the seasons change and the years pass, Mrs Brown’s Boys remains the same: tedious, unfunny, small-minded. Even a hold-up of the entire clan – perpetrated by a vicious criminal on the loose – can’t inject any tension into proceedings.
![[O’Carroll as the Irish mammy]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2024/12/23/17/500687.jpg)
If lessons have been learnt from the racism controversy, it’s not immediately clear what they are. It’s easy to laugh Mrs Brown’s Boys off as an old-school studio sitcom designed to peeve liberal metropolitan elites. It’s certainly easier to do that than it is to laugh in any other way. But we are living through a challenging moment for television. Shows are being cancelled in their pomp, and the pathways for young, diverse voices are facing increasing roadblocks. Getting from script to screen has never been harder, and yet… Mrs Brown’s Boys turns up again, in primetime slots on Christmas and New Year’s Day, like a planet-eating black hole in the TV schedule.
Not all television has to be good. After all, I like The Big Bang Theory even though everyone seems to consider it dross. One man’s dream is another’s nightmare. There are doubtless people who will find racial stereotypes hilarious, while others will need stitches at the prospect of teenage Bono (Jamie O’Carroll) dating an adult woman (“Don’t be silly,” Grandad (Dermot O’Neill) tells him, “put a condom on your willy!”). No, it’s not simply that Mrs Brown’s Boys attracts antipathy, like dust gravitating towards my mantelpiece. It’s that the O’Carrolls have had so many bites at the cherry, so many chances to improve or develop their offering, to evolve as the times around them have evolved. And they haven’t. Instead, they warm up for their festive run of episodes by alluding to racial slurs, a move that is then excused – endorsed even – on BBC One at 11.05pm on Christmas Day and then 10.30pm on New Year’s Day.
