Mrs Brown's boys

Mrs Brown's Boys is a Irish Sitcom about a foul-mouthed Dublin matriarch who interferes in the lives of her children and friends, created starring and written by Brendan O'Carroll. The sitcom is a co-production between BBC Scotland and BOCPIX in association with Ireland's RTE.

Mrs Brown's Boys characters first appeared in a series of five books; The Mammy, The Chisellers, The Grammy, The Scrapper and The Young Wan; written by Brendan O'Carroll towards the latter part of the 1990s and early part of 2000s. All five books were first published in Ireland, prior to being available in Great Britain.

Brendan O'Carroll, in March 2000 wrote 'Agnes Browne'; to which a movie was made ; Agnes Browne was played by Angelica Huston. following the success of the movie, O'Carroll set about writing a series of stories from which he adapted from the books he had previous wrote. Mrs Browne, now re-spelt Mrs Brown would be played by Brendan O'Carroll (a man dressed as a lady). Brendan O'Carroll made Mrs Brown's Boys a family stage show, by casting his family to play some of the characters.

Between 2002 and 2008 Irish television showed a series of seven film-like adaptions. During this period, Brendan O'Carroll made Mrs Brown's Boys into a stage show and took it to theatre's all around Great Britian and Ireland; Theatre shows in Ireland and Great Britain have been sell-out successes for numerous year.

In 2009 all the Irish programmes were released on DVD along with the bloopers and unseen footage.

In 2010, Brendan O'Carroll was approached to create a television series based on the stage show. Brendan O'Carroll recruited the cast from the Irish television adaptions, and soon set to work writing six - thirty minute episodes, an unbroadcasted pilot with a singalong panto-style finale. The pilot episode was filmed to encourage a network to pick up the series.

Irish channel RTE One announced they had the broadcasting rights to the Mrs Brown's Boys series. RTE One aired the first episode of Mrs Brown's Boys on 1st January 2011 and showed the series - six episodes -until 5th February 2011.

The BBC in Britain bought the rights to air the series; on 21st February 2011 the BBC began showing Mrs Brown's Boys episodes for the next six-weeks.

Following the success of Mrs Brown's Boys series one, both the BBC and RTE commissioned Brendan O'Carroll to do a second series.

RTE began showing Mrs Brown's Boys series two with their Christmas special on 25th December 2011 and the BBC showing there's on 26th December 2011. Mrs Brown's Boys christmas special was the most watched television programme in Ireland over the festive period. On 1st January 2012 Mrs Brown's Boys series two was aired (Britain 2nd January 2012), even prior to series two being aired it was announced that both the BBC and RTE had commissioned Mrs Brown's Boys series three and they plan to air later in 2012.

On its initial broadcast in Ireland Mrs Brown's Boys was a complete ratings success. Every episode aired has won its timeslot for RTE, January 2011 average viewing figures 753,000. Mrs Brown's Boys has even better rating that RTE 'The Late Late Show' in viewing figures; 856,000 viewers watched the Irish sitcom.

48.6% of the viewing audience watched Mrs Brown's Boys 2011 christmas episode.

16.4% of the viewing audience watched Mrs Brown's Boys when it was initially aired in Britain.

In 2011 Mrs Brown's Boys was nominated for a BAFTA Award at the British Academy Television Awards.

Mrs Brown' Boys television series is jam=-packed with all the laughs, surprises and dramas of the stage show; such as"that 's a banana, not a w***y - it won't get bigger if you squeeze on it". Prepare yourself for a riot of behaviour as Agnes Brown offers to help and gives he family and friends advice.

Mrs Brown's Boys is filmed at the BBC Pacific Quay Studios, Glasgow, Scotland; where it is recorded in front of a live studio audience, thus there is no laughter tracking used . The programme uses a laisses-faire stylein its production in which the audience, cameras and production crew are regularly seen; Agnes Brown aka Brendan O'Carroll, often break the fourth wall by talking straight to the camera. At the end of every episode there is a singalong panto-style finale in which all the cast get involved.

However, some television critics have slated Mrs Brown's Boys:

Bruce Harrison TV reviewer for the Irish Times wrote "the whole thin is entirely predicated viwers finding a man dressed as a foul-mouthed elderly woman intrinsically funny.........if you do, you're away in a hack, and the viewing figures are astronomical, but if you don't and you think that died out with Les Dawson and Dick Emery, then its a long half-hour".

Mrs Brown's Boys according to the Irish independent is the sort of television programme "that makes you vaguely embarrassed to be Irish".

In the opinion of the author of this hub to quote Mrs Brown herself these television critics articles are "totally fecking s***e". I would like to say well-done to RTE and the BBC for giving us an hilarious comedy on Monday nights at 9:30pm on BBC ONE is totally AWESOME.