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 fame. The collection, which sees Irish comic O’Carroll don a gown 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 assumed, stories of its mythological awfulness should be considerably overstated. So I made a decision to see for myself. I give myself every 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 instant. The primary episode performs out just about precisely how I had at all times imagined an episode of Mrs Brown’s Boys can be: poor-taste jokes, sexual innuendo, and hackneyed sitcom tomfoolery that will have felt a long time outdated even when I had watched it again in 2011, at first airing. The subsequent episode was a lot the identical. And the subsequent. And the subsequent. There’s little or no variation between the episodes, which happen nearly completely inside three units: Agnes Brown’s kitchen, Agnes Brown’s lounge, and Agnes Brown’s native pub. The supporting forged – Agnes Brown’s sons, daughter, father-in-law and some different hangers-on – is comprised largely of O’Carroll’s buddies and family members. Plotlines sometimes see the cantankerous, out-of-touch Mrs Brown intervene in her kids’s lives or romances; it’s a sitcom through 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 practically 24 hours. After two or three, I’ve totally received the gist, after which some; time appears to sluggish to a crawl via molasses. The issue isn’t that Mrs Brown’s Boys is witless, or lowbrow – although in fact, it’s. I bear in mind a latest week through 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 evokes fondness, whereas Mrs Brown’s Boys provokes solely scorn. It could 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 also 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 certainly 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 argument earlier this yr when O’Carroll was caught making a racist joke on set. “We’d additionally prefer to make clear that the ‘n’ phrase was completely not spoken, it was implied,” he mentioned in an announcement.) It’s, by the way, exceptional too simply how straight the collection’ sensibility appears, given it revolves round a person in drag.

A number of jokes in Mrs Brown’s Boys are the identical ones which were achieved brilliantly elsewhere. A joke through which the ever-oblivious Mrs Brown searches for the “any key” on a laptop computer is ripped nearly verbatim from an episode of The Simpsons; an argument over a misprint in a board sport 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 overseas phrase. I’m fairly positive I’ve not laughed out loud as soon as.

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

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I attain the yr 2013, the tip of the third season, and that is the place issues change: for the subsequent 9 years, Mrs Brown’s Boys turned an annual infliction, abandoning the full-series format completely. 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 collection, if solely as a result of it was 3 times so long as a daily episode. I watch it and take a protracted, unhappy bathe, cradling myself on the ground like Eva Inexperienced in On line casino Royale.

I can, at the very least, see the sunshine on the finish of the tunnel: golden, Agnes Brown-less days forward of me. I sit down and blast via the last decade of Christmas episodes in a single sitting, then the four-episode 2023 collection. What’s attention-grabbing 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 practically 15 years, it’s odd simply how little the collection has modified in any respect. Recurring jokes, reminiscent of Mrs Brown’s son Dermot (Paddy Houlihan) displaying up in a preposterous costume (the most recent Christmas particular sees him outfitted as a container for stool softener), are the type of short-shelf-life shtick that will 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 undecided 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 yr. It’s a handy whipping boy as a result of it’s naff and unapologetic in its crudity. However ultimately, 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 received the higher of me for a second there. Having slogged my means via screeners for this yr’s two specials, I’m now turning my TV off, and probably fly-tipping it onto the road, simply to verify I don’t by accident see one other minute of “Previous Mammy” and her excruciating sons. With no obvious want or need to alter, Mrs Brown’s Boys might simply run for one more 15 years. All I do know is I received’t be feckin’ watching.

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