Brendan O’Carroll has apologised for a ‘clumsy’ joke on the set of the upcoming Christmas special. Don’t expect it to do any damage to the worst comedy on TV
October 15, 2024 5:50 pm(Updated 6:55 pm)
I’ve always hated Mrs Brown’s Boys. Call me a lefty woke liberal snowflake, I don’t care – it’s juvenile, bottom-of-the-barrel, behind-the-times nonsense. I’m well aware that I sound like a snob, but its puerile, eighties-tinged sense of “humour” (and I use that word very loosely) makes my skin crawl.
Which is why I’m not surprised to learn that filming of the upcoming Christmas special was temporarily suspended after its creator and star, Brendan O’Carroll, reportedly made a “racist joke”.
“At a read-through of the Mrs Brown’s Boys Christmas specials, there was a clumsy attempt at a joke, in the character of Agnes, where a racial term was implied,” O’Carroll said in a statement. “It backfired and caused offence which I deeply regret and for which I have apologised.” The BBC, which has broadcast the series since 2011, investigated the issue before filming continued – presumably it found no cause for concern.
We have no idea of the contents of the joke, of course, but to cause offence in a room full of Mrs Brown’s Boys fans – no stranger to O’Carroll’s brand of blue humour – it must have been rather clumsy indeed. If this had happened on any other series with a live studio audience, it may well be a career-ender. Not so for Mrs Brown’s Boys.
There’s a reason the comic included “in the character of Agnes” in his statement about the incident. A caricature of an unfiltered cackling loudmouth Irish mammy, Agnes can say whatever she wants with little consequence – the excuse of being “from a different generation” has never benefited anyone as much as it has Agnes. And as proved from this incident, O’Carroll believes this forgiveness extends to him.
Agnes has become somewhat of a symbol of resistance against the so-called woke agenda that many believe the BBC has succumbed to. She says what she thinks and doesn’t care who she upsets. Agnes – and therefore Mrs Brown’s Boys – harks back to a simpler time when no one had to worry that about being cancelled or saying the wrong thing (even by accident).
But the franchise has become a behemoth that would be more aggro for the BBC to cancel than it is to just weather the storm when such events occur. With a Bafta, three National Television Awards (the only TV awards in the UK voted for by the public) and a loyal following of millions, it’s clear that there are some people who really, really love Mrs Brown’s Boys. People I love and respect, too – every Christmas I slink off to my own corner of the house when my family inevitably tune into Agnes’s grim cackling.
But the tide is turning. While an episode in 2013 could pull in 11 million viewers (the same amount of people who watched last year’s infinitely better Happy Valley), the most recent series in 2023 was watched by just three million. It’s admittedly an impressive number in today’s TV landscape, but nonetheless a dismal drop from its former glory.
A slip-up like this explained away as a joke – like so many other queasy TV moments recently – will only bolster Agnes’s bolshy brand of putting up two fingers to the naysayers, and I’m afraid we still have this year’s festive specials to endure yet. It certainly isn’t enough to finally nail Mr Brown’s Boys coffin shut.