Mrs Browns Boys on BBC One is one of those comedy shows you either love or hate!
Funny, sometimes crude and usually featuring swearing, the sitcom also has a real heart warming element that usually manages to avoid being too sentimental.
Agnes Brown lives in Dublin and attempts to make sense of the world around her and control her grown up family and friends with lashings of Dublin wit and sometimes foul language! The sitcom follows her life and that of her four children, partners friends and children as well as granddad. Most of the action takes place in the rooms of Agnes’s home with occasional scenes set in the local pub, Foleys Bar.

The Brown Clan are not your usual family and an interesting feature of the show is that most cast members are played by members of the same family.  Agnes Brown is played by the show’s creator Brendan O Carroll – a man in drag. Agnes’s only daughter Cathy still  living at home with Mammy and failing to find true romance probably for this reason, is played by actress Jennifer Gibney , in real life married to Brendan O Carroll. Agnes’s best friend and neighbour Winnie McGoogan is played by Eilish O Carroll – Brendan O' Carroll’s sister. Other family members fill many of the lead roles.
The format of the show is unusual. It is filmed in front of a live audience and the end of each espisode sees the cameras pan away to reveal the set and the cameras as the cast take a bow in front of the audience. Agnes Brown also makes references to being a “man in a dress” and creates the impression that the audience is in on the joke!
Although Mrs Browns Boys was generally slated by critics, viewing figures have not reflected this opinion. The show won a BAFTA award for the best situation comedy in 2012 and further awards including TV Choice award for best comedy in the same year as well as Best Comedy in the 2013 in the National TV Awards.

Critics have said that the show has reinforced Irish stereotypes and that there is nothing funny about a man in drag, but the viewers have not agreed. Watch Mrs Browns Boys via youriplayer.co.uk and make up your own mind.
Mrs Browns Boys appeals to all age groups despite the occasional bad language. It is popular in Ireland as well as the UK and Brendan O Carroll recently turned down a multi million offer with HBO to transfer the show to America, refusing on personal reasons: namely, he did not want to go!
Mrs Browns Boys first aired on BBC One in 2011 and has run to three series. The show is produced in collaboration with RTE and BBC Scotland.
 

Watch all episodes of Mrs Brown's Boys here. Mrs Brown's Boys is a tv-programme of BBC One. You can see all episodes of Mrs Brown's Boys here via Youriplayer.co.uk.