OOH MRS B... you are awful, but we like you
IT was the first ace of the show. ‘Your son Andy is the World No.1 singles tennis player and your son Jamie is the No.1 doubles player,’ Agnes Brown said to Judy Murray. ‘So can I ask you a question? Do you ever feckin’ smile?’
As it happens, Judy not only smiled but laughed heartily.
Part of the fun of a chat show hosted by an outrageous character with no filter – think back to the late Caroline Aherne’s classic Mrs Merton, and the granny in The Kumars – is that because everyone is in on the joke, no one takes offence, no matter how blunt (more of that later) the material is.
The Mrs Brown’s Boys sitcom format has been dead for a few years now (it’s time-consuming to write and produce, so we’re left with two Christmas specials a year and the never-ending tour of the live show that traipses around Ireland, the UK, Canada and the Antipodes), but audiences still seem desperate for a fix of the potty-mouthed matriarch, and a chat show is quicker and easier to produce.
All Round To Mrs Brown’s simultaneously kicked off last night on RTÉ One and BBC1, and it proved an oddly frustrating affair, with more gimmicks than was necessary when straightforward ribbing on the couch easily would have sufficed.
For starters, they could jettison the Mammy of the Week Award; Brendan O’Carroll always has trod a very balanced line between smut and sentimentality, but this tipped too far in the wrong direction of the latter.
The notion that Agnes is effectively hijacking a chat show really hosted by Cathy also seemed pointless, as were all the appearances by Chef Aly.
Aly seems an amiable sort of chap but he’s another of the O’Carroll Repertory Company of family and friends (he’s the caterer for the cast) to be thrust in the limelight.
A filmed insert starring Louis Walsh on a tour of Madame Tussaud’s waxworks with Dermot Brown and Buster Brady dressed as Shrek and Fiona also was unfunny.
It was more a misguided attempt at padding out a half-hour idea into a full hour of television (or an hour and 20 minutes on RTÉ, thanks to the ads).
There was a great deal to enjoy though – like the moment in a kitchen-table chat with Baywatch star Pamela Anderson when confusion between the words Botox and buttocks led to a very filthy joke indeed.
Or Judy Murray’s mother, Shirley Erskine, who proved as lively an old dear as Agnes herself.
Or Buster suspended by wires and having the life flicked out of him with tea towels.
And – dear God, I’m not sure I’ll ever erase this image from my brain – singer James Blunt and Agnes locking tongues.
Still, it’s early days, and there was a lot of promise for the future on the show.
They will just need to give the guests and Agnes alike a bit more time on the couch, and they need to lose some of the window dressing.
And RTÉ needs to take a look at its schedules.
The programme was followed by The Ray D’Arcy Show, then a repeat of the other Brendan O’s Cutting Edge. I know we Irish like to talk, but three and quarter hours of chat on a Saturday night is ridiculous.
All that said, I look forward to popping around to Mrs Brown’s again next week.
‘He taught audience how to make sushi’ ‘Dear God! Blunt and Agnes locking tongues’