Not your average TV family
‘Mrs. Brown’s Boys’ bests both ‘Doctor Who’ and ‘Downton Abbey’ during Christmas ratings in the U.K.
While visiting my family for Christmas this year, I started to watch a show that my parents, my sister and her in-laws find uproariously funny, but one I had barely heard of before.
In fact, it was the previous Christmas Eve when my brother-in-law’s mother and aunt, both Scottish ex-pats, started telling me about the BBC series “Mrs. Brown’s Boys.”
Unfortunately, I didn’t have BBC Canada as part of my TV package at the time and forgot about the show shortly after.
When I arrived at my sister’s home this year, she asked me if I had ever watched it as we were flicking through the channels once her kids were in bed.
Before long the two of us were laughing out loud.
The show, about an uncouth Irish matriarch played by a man in drag, is not for everyone. In fact, British critics have almost universally given thumbs down to the show, with some going so far as to condemn the BBC for wasting money on it.
Think Monty Python meets “All in the Family.”
At the same time, the sitcom — which is taped in front of a large studio audience — has become one of the most popular shows in the U.K., and is gaining fans rapidly in Canada and Australia.
On Christmas Day this year, “Mrs. Brown’s Boys” beat out both “Downton Abbey” and “Doctor Who” as the most watched show in the U.K., after a movie based on the series grossed $28 million earlier this year in England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales alone.
The show is the brainchild of Irish comedian Brendan O’Carroll and started in 1992 as a radio play, before O’Carroll wrote a series of books about the titular character, Agnes Brown, who he plays in the television series.
In 2009, the BBC began developing it for the small screen, with O’Carroll as both writer and principal performer. Many of the other actors and actresses that make up the cast are played by O’Carroll’s real family.
Most of the show takes place in the Brown home, where the F-bomb spewing senior lives with her divorced daughter and — my favourite character — Granddad (Dermot O’Neill) who has very few lines.
O’Neill is outstanding even when he is just smiling prop who soaks up a large part of his daughter-law’s-abuse.
Mr. Brown has long since died, and Agnes often jokes she wishes his father would get on with his afterlife as well.
Cathy Brown (played by O’Carroll’s wife Jennifer Gibney) is on the hunt for a new man and has a clever, vengeful streak in her. When she discovers an ex-boyfriend is taking his new love overseas for vacation, she tips off airport security that they are drug dealers. Yet she is often the voice of reason, and one of the only members of the family who can reign in her mother.
Oldest son Mark (Pat Shields) and wife Betty (Amanda Woods) had limited screen time in the handful of episodes I watched during a BBC Canada marathon on Christmas Day. They have a son named Bono, who rarely appears on camera, but is played by O’Carroll’s grandson Jamie.
Rory Brown (Rory Cowan) is Agnes’ second oldest. He runs a hair salon with his husband Dino (Gary Hollywood), and although his mother doesn’t hold back on the occasional joke about him being gay, he doesn’t receive any less abuse than anyone else — nor does he get any less of his mother’s unconditional, if unconventional, love.
Dermot Brown (Paddy Houlihan) makes a living by dressing up in costumes to promote a variety of businesses and has the most screen time of the Brown boys. His wife Maria (played by O’Carroll’s daughter, Fiona) is from a posh family, who’s mother also makes occasional appearances in the show to stare slack-jawed at Mrs. Brown and her blue-collar language and antics.
While several other characters appear in the show, the two most important are Agnes’s best friend and next door neighbour Winnie (Eilish O’Carroll, Brendan’s sister) and Dermot’s best friend, the petty criminal Buster (O’Carroll’s son, Danny). Besides Granddad, these two take the most abuse from Mrs. Brown.
The local priests are also frequent visitors to the Brown’s Irish Catholic home and are treated with a backhanded, and somewhat condescending, respect
The show is far from politically correct, but it’s also an anachronism by taking a pass on the laugh track in preference of a real audience.
The show often lets bloopers become part of the comedy, and scenes often restart after O’Carroll makes unscripted jokes about the blunders first.
Mrs. Brown also often breaks the so-called fourth wall, and talks directly to the audience at several points during an episode, making it a somewhat interactive series.
A little does go along way, though. This isn’t a show I would binge on or even watch daily.
But when the mood strikes and you’re aching for British slapstick mixed with a foulmouthed granny who show’s her love through insults, check out “Mrs. Brown’s Boys.”