Every year on Christmas Day, people around the country have very specific customs about what they will watch with their family and loved ones.
From EastEnders to the Strictly Come Dancing special, plus an almost continual stream of seasonal films, many people find themselves captivated to their TV screens for the whole of the day… when they aren’t at the dinner table, of course.
Mrs Brown’s Boys and the specials that have broadcast on Christmas and New Year’s Day for the past decade are one RTÉ and BBC series that always divides opinion – which some would characterise as being as contentious as marmite.
Despite repeated criticism from reviewers, Brendan O’Carroll’s comedy, which stars the Irish comedian as the lead character Agnes Brown, has been running since 2011.
This year, just a few months after returning for a fourth season, it returns to present the latest happenings in the matriarch Agnes’ tumultuous family.
Brendan, 68, was asked ahead of the film’s premiere why he believes there are still a lot of people who see Mrs Brown’s Boys every year, despite the negative reviews.
It’s all because of what’s been going on in the globe for the last 15 years or so, in his perspective.
‘You know what it is, I think since 2008 the world hasn’t had a break. We’ve had all sorts of challenges, we’ve had a pandemic, we have had wars, all sorts of worries and it just gets to the stage where people get unsure, they get nostalgic,’ he answered.
‘They go “Oh do you remember before, all this was lovely, that was lovely, the summers were longer and Christmas was brighter.” Mrs. Brown’s Boys has a kind of nostalgia to it.’
Brendan explained that in the case of Mrs Brown’s Boys, it ‘looks back to that kind of late 80s and 90s comedy where you don’t have to worry about it, you just sit down and let it come at you’.
He continued: ‘You don’t have to try and figure it out, you don’t have to have a university degree to understand it. It’s just gags and it’s let’s sit down on Christmas Day, whatever else happens, let’s sit down and just have a laugh.
‘I think that’s a big part of it, I think it’s nostalgia.’
As for whether he thinks members of the public ‘relate’ to the tales of Agnes and the rest of the cast of Mrs Brown’s Boys, Brendan outlined the importance of writing ‘about what you know’, which might be why some viewers might see themselves in the characters.
‘It wasn’t deliberate or a plan, it wasn’t. They always say when you’re writing you should write about what you know,’ he stated.
‘All the characters in Mrs Brown’s Boys, I know them, I know all those characters, and as it turns out everybody knows a Mrs Brown, everybody knows a Mark, everybody knows a Buster.
‘So, I think that the characters are relatable and as well as that they’re a bit predictable too, in that I know the audience see that line coming a mile down the road. But here’s the thing, if we don’t deliver what they are expecting every second is shattered so you have to, it’s the familiarity.’
Following the premiere of the newest Mrs Brown’s Boys New Year’s Day special in January of this year, several fans demanded that it be taken from the air entirely due to how much they loathed the show.
‘A five year old could write a better script than this,’ one person said at the time, while another wrote: ‘‘Don’t understand why people likeMrs Brown’s Boys it’s not funny.’
Mrs. Brown’s Boys returns on Christmas Day at 10:45pm on BBC One. The New Year’s Special airs at 10pm on New Year’s Day.
Source My Celebrity Life.