{"id":210993,"date":"2025-12-26T00:05:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-26T00:05:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/210993\/"},"modified":"2025-12-26T00:05:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-26T00:05:07","slug":"the-studio-audience-sound-as-if-they-are-being-held-hostage-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/210993\/","title":{"rendered":"The studio audience sound as if they are being held hostage \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Mrs Brown\u2019s Boys first became a hit<\/a> on the BBC<\/a>, there was widespread consensus among the cognoscenti that it was a harbinger of the imminent downfall of western civilisation.<\/p>\n

But Brendan O\u2019Carroll<\/a> has defied the snobs to merrily churn out his no-brow sitcom for 15 years now \u2013 and still the world continues to turn. Whether Mrs Brown\u2019s Boys has a future is harder to say \u2013 ratings have plummeted from a peak of 13 million to just two million last December, and O\u2019Carroll has said that he would have no complaint were the BBC and RT\u00c9 to call time on the series and the seasonal one-off.<\/p>\n

You do have to wonder if his heart is still in it because this latest Xmas one-off (RT\u00c9 One, 9.05pm) is among O\u2019Carroll\u2019s flattest festive forays yet. There are barely any gags, and a typically enthusiastic turn by O\u2019Carroll, playing Finglas Mammy Agnes Brown, cannot paper over the paucity of zingers.<\/p>\n

As is the tradition with these Christmas instalments, the plot is mushier than Brussels sprouts that one of your dinner guests has stomped into the carpet. Agnes\u2019s grandson Bono is angry about his parents\u2019 break-up while Mrs Brown\u2019s daughter, Cathy (O\u2019Carroll\u2019s real-life wife, Jennifer Gibney), is eager for the family to speak more honestly about what they do and don\u2019t want for Christmas.<\/p>\n

You can see what O\u2019Carroll is getting at here. Christmas is difficult and frustrating, but once you have your family, does anything else matter? But that entirely laudable message is attached to a chuckle-free sitcom that doesn\u2019t even have the energy to be in poor taste. Oh, for a gag about breaking wind or a well-deployed single entendre to interrupt the monotony.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Mrs Brown\u2019s Boys review: It\u2019s surely time for this dreary and unfunny series to fade from our screensOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

There are a few serviceable one-liners \u2013 if by serviceable we mean that they would have passed muster in a British workingmen\u2019s club in the 1970s. \u201cI\u2019ve just had a big epiphany,\u201d says Cathy at one point. \u201cI\u2019ll get the plunger,\u201d deadpans Agnes \u2013 to reluctant hoots from the studio audience who sound as if they are being held hostage.<\/p>\n

Ireland has shared a few iffy exports with the world across the decades \u2013 from Ronan Keating\u2019s Fairytale of New York to Paul Mescal\u2019s attempt at sounding like Russell Crowe in Gladiator 2. Mrs Brown\u2019s Boys isn\u2019t quite as off-putting \u2013 but even for a retro sitcom, it is clearly past its sell-by date. Taking up the theme of Christmas honesty as expounded in the episode, perhaps Mrs Brown should heed her own advice. It\u2019s time for this creaky comedy to enjoy a well-earned Christmas break. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Mrs Brown\u2019s Boys first became a hit on the BBC, there was widespread consensus among the cognoscenti…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":209191,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1578,109900,93,61,60,6085],"class_list":["post-210993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-bbc","tag-brendan-o-carroll","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-rte"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=210993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210993\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/209191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=210993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=210993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=210993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}