From my “Guilty Pleasures” list comes a new entry called Mrs. Brown’s Boys. It’s a sitcom created by Brendan O’Carroll, who plays Mrs. Brown in drag. So far, there is only one season of 6 episodes, which first aired In Ireland in January 2011. The cast is mostly Irish, and many of the actors are relatives of O’Carroll. The title character first appeared in his novel The Mammy.
Mrs. Brown is a widow who has six grown children – five sons and one daughter, and she sees it as her duty to help (interfere) with each of them. This is made fairly easy since 3 of her sons and her daughter live at home with her, as does her elderly father-in-law.
The humor is gross, the characters are stereotypes, the language raunchy, and it’s all so much fun. Filmed before a studio audience, Mrs. Brown often breaks the fourth wall and talks directly to the viewers. Another really funny thing is that they leave the bloopers in and just keep going. When someone enters a room too soon or calls a character by the wrong name or the camera crashes into the set, Mrs. Brown will make some ad lib that’s right on target.
The series isn’t available on DVD in the US yet, but the full episodes are available on YouTube, starting here.
Interesting aside: Angelica Houston made a film of the book, which she titled Agnes Browne. It’s set in the late 1960s, when the characters children are all school age. The television version updates the time to the present and the kids are all grown up.
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