Early in the first episode of this new series of BBC One’s Mrs Brown’s Boys, Mammy (Brendan O’Carroll, of course) vouchsafes that she’s feeling very tired and unwell and, naturally, I hoped for the worst. Alas, the moribund but seemingly indestructible character of Agnes Brown will be around for a while longer, and, by the looks of it, may end up being the last programme that BBC television in its present linear form ever broadcasts. Whenever anyone asks me what the future of conventional television programming is, I point them to Mrs Brown’s Boys, as warning, cause and symbol of its eventual demise.
Please don’t think that I bear any personal malice towards any of those involved. I’ve nothing, apart from the obvious, against O’Carroll, his co-writer Paddy Houlihan, or anyone else involved in this televisual abomination, and I wish them long and prosperous lives (tempered by a degree of envy at how they, presumably, make such a comfortable living from the lowest of lowest common denominator comedy). Still, good luck to them, as Mammy might say.
