Hello there. Did you click this link by mistake? No? You’re reading a review of Mrs Brown’s Boys out of genuine curiosity? You’re hoping to discover what some liberal, metropolitan hack thinks of a show that has been roundly condemned as “utterly awful” by the entire journalistic establishment? Or perhaps you’re hoping to discover whether, after 13 years and 48 episodes, the show has taken a fresh pivot into foreign concepts such as “wit” and “coherence”? Well, whatever your reasons for reading, they can’t be any less explicable than the cultural permeation of Brendan O’Carroll’s sitcom, which is returning this New Year for the second part of its festive run.
Agnes Brown (O’Carroll himself) is an elderly Irish “mammy” facing the prospect of another year as matriarch of the sprawling Brown clan. Her best friend Winnie (Eilish O’Carroll) is being pursued by a mysterious stalker, her son Dermot (Paddy Houlihan) and best friend Buster (Danny O’Carroll) are promoting solar panel installation, and daughter-in-law Maria (Fiona O’Carroll) is running a weight loss competition. That’s roughly what’s going on in this New Year’s special (which stretches the word “special” to breaking point), though, as ever, much of the action transpires around Agnes’s kitchen table.
