Is Mrs Brown’s Boys actually that dangerous? Till final week, I had by no means seen greater than a minute of Brendan O’Carroll’s notorious BBC sitcom – however knew it, in fact, by repute. The sequence, which sees Irish comic O’Carroll don a costume and fusty perm to play eccentric matriarch Agnes Brown, has usually been known as the worst present on British tv – a crass, unfunny throwback that for some motive retains returning, each Christmas, as if hand-delivered by the Grinch himself. My curiosity was piqued, nevertheless. Certainly, I believed, experiences of its mythological awfulness have to be considerably overstated. So I made a decision to see for myself. I give myself per week, and got down to fill each unclaimed minute of my time with a front-to-back Mrs Brown’s marathon.

The remorse is sort of quick. The primary episode performs out just about precisely how I had at all times imagined an episode of Mrs Brown’s Boys could be: poor-taste jokes, sexual innuendo, and hackneyed sitcom tomfoolery that may have felt a long time old-fashioned even when I had watched it again in 2011, at first airing. The subsequent episode was a lot the identical. And the following. And the following. There’s little or no variation between the episodes, which occur virtually totally inside three units: Agnes Brown’s kitchen, Agnes Brown’s front room, and Agnes Brown’s native pub. The supporting solid – Agnes Brown’s sons, daughter, father-in-law and some different hangers-on – is comprised largely of O’Carroll’s pals and kin. Plotlines usually see the cantankerous, out-of-touch Mrs Brown intervene in her youngsters’s lives or romances; it’s a sitcom by which Mrs Brown is at all times herself the state of affairs.

Stacked collectively alongside the film, a full watch-through of Mrs Brown’s Boys lasts almost 24 hours. After two or three, I’ve totally acquired the gist, after which some; time appears to sluggish to a crawl by molasses. The issue isn’t that Mrs Brown’s Boys is witless, or lowbrow – although in fact, it’s. I bear in mind a current week by which social media was abuzz with individuals reminiscing over Harry Hill’s TV Burp, one other British comedy present that was usually lowbrow, and totally foolish. However there’s a motive TV Burp nonetheless conjures up fondness, whereas Mrs Brown’s Boys provokes solely scorn. It might be a matter of efficiency as a lot as materials: that intangible high quality of merely being humorous.

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O’Carroll’s present can be totally politically incorrect, however seldom more likely to offend. Agnes’s homosexual son Rory (Rory Cowan) is the supply of loads of antiquated homophobic wordplay, but the present’s tack is considered one of ostensible open-mindedness. It might have been straightforward to make Mrs Brown a type of bigoted boomer; as a substitute the present makes her benignly out-of-touch. (Off-screen is one other matter: the sitcom was embroiled in an issue earlier this 12 months when O’Carroll was caught making a racist joke on set. “We might additionally wish to make clear that the ‘n’ phrase was completely not spoken, it was implied,” he stated in a press release.) It’s, by the way, exceptional too simply how straight the sequence’ sensibility appears, given it revolves round a person in drag.

A number of jokes in Mrs Brown’s Boys are the identical ones which have been executed brilliantly elsewhere. A joke by which the ever-oblivious Mrs Brown searches for the “any key” on a laptop computer is ripped virtually verbatim from an episode of The Simpsons; an argument over a misprint in a board recreation quiz – the insistence on the reply being “Silence of the Limbs” – performs out like a less-funny repeat of a traditional Seinfeld scene. When O’Carroll does them, they’re not solely much less authentic – but additionally laboured and artless within the supply.

One notably execrable episode makes an attempt to derive most of its humour from an inflatable pair of breasts. Because the breasts deflate, they make the sound of flatulence. As a heartfelt scene performs out, Agnes’s daughter Cathy (Jennifer Gibney, Carroll’s real-world spouse) is repeatedly interrupted by the farting sound – once more, and once more, and once more. Each gag is milked dry; subtlety is a international phrase. I’m fairly positive I’ve not laughed out loud as soon as.

The present’s one level of innovation – to present credit score the place credit score is due – revolves across the breaking of the fourth wall. Bloopers are continuously left within the remaining reduce of the present. O’Carroll continuously acknowledges to the viewers (each at residence and people rabid fans within the studio crowd) the artifice of the sitcom. (“Why are you right here?” “It’s within the script!”) These are typically humorous, and surprising, however it’s a case of diminishing returns.

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I attain the 12 months 2013, the tip of the third season, and that is the place issues change: for the following 9 years, Mrs Brown’s Boys grew to become an annual infliction, abandoning the full-series format totally. This sense of occasion in all probability helped the present’s scores – the 2013 festive specials drew a series-high viewers of 11.4 million individuals (!!?), which regularly tapered off to 4.18 a decade later. In 2014, O’Carroll additionally launched Mrs Brown’s Boys D’Film, a theatrically launched spin-off that was even worse than the sequence, if solely as a result of it was thrice so long as a daily episode. I watch it and take an extended, unhappy bathe, cradling myself on the ground like Eva Inexperienced in On line casino Royale.

I can, a minimum of, see the sunshine on the finish of the tunnel: golden, Agnes Brown-less days forward of me. I sit down and blast by the last decade of Christmas episodes in a single sitting, then the four-episode 2023 sequence. What’s fascinating about Mrs Brown’s Boys’s swap from weekly serialised runs to twice-yearly seasonal specials is that it loses any actual sense of continuity: any notion that the viewers is definitely invested in issues reminiscent of character arcs, or story, is thrown out the window. What outcomes is a way of inertia. Over almost 15 years, it’s odd simply how little the sequence has modified in any respect. Recurring jokes, reminiscent of Mrs Brown’s son Dermot (Paddy Houlihan) exhibiting up in a preposterous costume (the newest Christmas particular sees him outfitted as a container for stool softener), are the type of short-shelf-life shtick that may absolutely have been retired had been the present airing week-in, week-out.

Lastly, I arrive on the finish of the marathon, poorer, sadder and dare I say a worse particular person for it. However I can’t assist however really feel some sympathy with those that watch the present religiously. I’m unsure Mrs Brown’s Boys actually is the worst TV present round. I’m not even positive it’s the worst factor to have blighted BBC One this 12 months. It’s a handy whipping boy as a result of it’s naff and unapologetic in its crudity. However in the long run, isn’t there one thing charming about its brazenness, its readiness to embrace tv custom, to stay totally proof against its many haters? Is it even, dare I ask, fairly watchable?

No – it isn’t. Sleep deprivation acquired the higher of me for a second there. Having slogged my method by screeners for this 12 months’s two specials, I’m now turning my TV off, and probably fly-tipping it onto the road, simply to verify I don’t unintentionally see one other minute of “Previous Mammy” and her excruciating sons. With no obvious want or want to alter, Mrs Brown’s Boys might simply run for one more 15 years. All I do know is I gained’t be feckin’ watching.

‘Mrs Brown’s Boys’ is offered to stream on BBC iPlayer