While most people have only discovered Mrs. Brown’s Boys in the last couple of years, the character has a surprisingly long history. Brendan O’Carroll started writing books about the character of Agnes Browne in the early 90s, which even became a film named after the character starring Anjelica Huston in 1999. It was only after that, and a dropping of the e’ from the end of Mrs. Brown’s name, that he started playing her himself, first on in self-penned plays, which were converted into a series of specials for Irish TV.
Then in 2011 BBC Scotland and Ireland’s RTE co-commissioned the sitcom Mrs. Brown’s Boys and a surprise hit was spawned. Now the character has gone back to the stage with a reworked version of the 2000 play/comedy show, Good Mourning Mrs. Brown, which is now coming to DVD, filmed live in front of a theatre audience.
To be honest Mrs. Brown is a bit of a Marmite proposition, and while I can understand why a lot of people love it’s rather old-fashioned style of rude humour, it isn’t exactly my cup of tea. I had a few good laughs, but with a lot of it I had the same reaction as I do when watching the likes of Roy Chubby Brown or Jethro, which is sitting there wondering why the audience is almost wetting themselves with laughter. And the audience sure do like it, as do a lot of the cast. Indeed it’s difficult to tell sometimes whether the actors are genuinely corpsing and therefore O’Carroll is ad-libbing a lot of the time or if it’s a deliberate part of the show that the audience certainly seems to enjoy.
There is a plot, but it’s a bit all over the place, so this is largely a series of skits. Granddad wishes he could be at his own funeral, and so Mrs. Brown decides to arrange just that. Her son Dermot is expecting twins (at least) and turns to crime to help pay for it, and gay son Rory is having problems with boyfriend Dino. It’s all very silly and the humour is course, and while I only felt it found a few real gems, a lot of people will love it.
I felt it was rather like the sitcom-within-a-sitcom in Ricky Gervais’ Extras, When The Whistles Blow, which Gervais’ character looks down on as being out of date and yet popular with viewers. It’s the same here, as Mrs. Brown’s Boys does feel a little like it fell out of the 1970s, but a lot ruder. However the fact is that because few comedies now try to appeal to a simpler, broader, less hip’ audience, it means something like Mrs. Brown’s Boys can find an appreciative, underserved pool of viewers who are crying out for something like it. It might not work for me, but I can certainly understand why it does for a lot of others.
However one thing that does kind of bug me is whether it’s homophobic or not. While Dino and Rory are positive characters, they rely on the broadest gay stereotypes. It’s one of those cases where you know the creators can cloak themselves in justifications that the audience is supposed to like the boyfriends, it’s all rather cartoonish and they’re not judged for their relationship (other than by the deliberately ignorant), but it’s difficult not to feel much of the humour surrounding them relies on the audience laughing at them, not with them. I can’t decide whether I’m being overly sensitive, but I have to say it did make me rather uncomfortable and as if I’d slipped back in time to when it was okay to poke fun at the gays. Yes, it’s old-fashioned comedy, but there are limits.
Overall Verdict: If you like the TV series, there’s no doubt you’ll enjoy this. I can’t say it was my thing and there are things about it I’d like to change, but if you enjoy broad, crude and very rude comedy, you’ll like this.
Reviewer: Tim Isaac