Mrs Brown’s Boys wins best sitcom at Baftas for Brendan O’Carroll

Mrs Brown’s Boys wins best sitcom at Baftas for Brendan O’Carroll

But official recognition for Mrs Brown’s Boys â€" which triumphed over Fresh Meat, Friday Night Dinner and Rev â€" has been a long time coming.

Dubliner Brendan created the character of Mrs Brown â€" who he plays in drag â€" way back in 1992.

He came up with the show at short notice for Ireland’s RTE radio, and only ended up playing the lead character by accident.

Brendan said: “I’d booked an actress to play the part of Mrs Brown, but she didn’t show and we had to do the recording so I stood in. When the studio editor listened to it, he told me that the actress playing Mrs Brown was brilliant. I laughed at him and told him it was me, but he said I had to keep it in, so I did â€" and the Mrs Brown we all know and love was born.”

The radio series, written by Brendan, was an instant hit â€" although the station was so skint that initially he was paid in T-shirts which he had to flog for cash.

After several Irish TV specials, a proper series first screened on BBC1 last year in partnership with Ireland’s RTE1 and averaged nearly five million viewers.

A second series aired earlier this year and a third is on the way.

“Already more than one million DVDs of the first series have sold in the UK â€" and it is still No2 in the Amazon comedy charts after six months.

Brendan says the meddling matriarch is based on a whole gaggle of old women he knew as a child in the Irish capital.

He said: “I used to hang around the market after school, and run errands for all the old dears there â€" and that’s where she comes from.

“Grannies just don’t care. I’m only 56 now but I’m getting towards that age where you don’t give a f**k. You get to 80, what are you going to do? She says exactly what’s on her mind. Most of the time she back-peddles, but you know what she means.”

Brendan is still amazed the BBC got him to write a sitcom series, which followed the success of a Mrs Brown live tour .

He revealed: “I couldn’t believe they wanted it. I mean, she uses ‘f**k’ as a comma. I didn’t think they could get that past the bosses at the BBC.

“Unfortunately, just as we were pitching it, the story of Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand’s prank call to Andrew Sachs broke.

“The producer told me that anyone who read my script would just see ‘f**k’ and nothing else, so we sat on it for nine months before pitching it â€" and thankfully they took it.”