'I pooh-poohed the plot. And then…' Comic Oliver Callan weighs in on Mrs Brown's Boys

Comedian and radio presenter Oliver Callan has revealed his honest opinion of a long-running comedy that people either love or hate – and even love to hate.

Mr Callan has belonged to both schools of thought on Mrs Brown’s Boys, starring Brendan O’Carroll.

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He started out loathing the show, but after returning home from a funeral, exhausted on a bleak winter’s day, the 43-year-old tuned into a repeat of an old Christmas special and was soon in hysterics.

Oliver Callan. Pic: RTE

Responding to a MailOnline vox pop as to whether Mrs Brown’s Boys is funny or not, he said: ‘What makes one laugh is even more subjective than tastes in music. If someone’s laughing somewhere, it is, by definition, funny.’

He continued: ‘I liked to believe that Mrs Brown’s Boys just wasn’t for me. Until we were coming in from a funeral or something some years ago on an exhausted, misty, dark, decrepit winter’s day.

Mrs Brown and Winnie McGoogan Pic: BBC

‘A rerun of an old ­Christmas special came on the telly. I scoffed at some of the lines. I pooh-poohed the plot. And then… Mrs Brown mounted a ­Christmas tree.

‘Brendan’s superb physical comic acting had me in convulsions. And damn him, but he cheered up a miserable night.’

In the vox pop, one Irish man called it ‘a load of old s***e’.

Gary Hollywood Brendan O'Carroll Pic: BBC

English friends Milla, Philly, Joanna and Helen had conflicting views about it. ‘We think it’s funny but no one else does,’ Joanna laughed. Philly said: ‘I don’t think it’s funny. I don’t like the content.’

It reached its peak audience of 11 million in 2012 and 2013, then in 2017 was the most-watched show on TV on Christmas Day with 6.8 million viewers.

It slumped to four million viewers last Christmas, but it remains one of the BBC’s biggest comedy hits that has graced, or haunted, screens for more than a decade.

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