Leave Mrs Brown’s Boys Alone:
The Case Against Comedy Snobbery
Rather listen than read? Here is the audio.
I don’t watch Mrs Brown’s Boys anymore. I did, back in the early days, when Brendan O’Carroll was corpsing the cast, outtakes were left in, and the live audience felt like part of the family. But I’ve always preferred wordplay to pratfalls, so I drifted away. And from what I gather, the show isn’t what it once was.
So no, I’m not here to tell you it’s the greatest comedy of our time. I’m here because the hate for Mrs Brown’s Boys has gone way beyond taste. It’s become a badge of “comedy snobbery” — the idea that if you laugh at it, you must be thick, and if no one in your circle admits to watching it, then clearly nobody does. That’s nonsense.
Mrs Brown’s Boys is a sitcom created by and starring Brendan O’Carroll, playing Agnes Brown.
It is produced in Scotland with BBC/RTÉ involvement, recorded in front of a live audience, often with outtakes and intentional “corpsing” (actors breaking) left in.
It began on TV in 2011. Since then, it has become a fixture of Christmas and New Year’s specials.
In April 2025, a fifth series (mini-series / four episodes) was commissioned, filmed in May/June, and aired starting 1 August 2025 on BBC One (also on iPlayer) as four new episodes.
On side-shows / spin-offs:
There was All Round to Mrs Brown’s, a variety / entertainment / talk show version hosted by Agnes Brown and the family. It ran for 3 series, from 2017 to 2020. It was cancelled (or didn’t return) largely due to COVID-19 regulations.
The snobbery script
The same lines get rolled out every time:
“Nobody I know watches it.”
“It’s only for people who don’t understand proper comedy.”
“The BBC should be ashamed of wasting licence fee money on this.”
Let’s unpack that.
“Nobody I know” isn’t evidence, it’s just a bubble. Millions of people have watched it. In its heyday, nearly 10 million tuned in on Christmas Day. Even in 2024, at what critics gleefully called its “lowest ebb,” 2.2 million people still sat down on Christmas night to see it. That’s hardly “nobody.”
As for intelligence: comedy taste is not a proxy for IQ. Watching Fleabag doesn’t make you a genius. Watching Mrs Brown’s Boys doesn’t make you stupid. It just means your tastes are different or you just enjoy both.
What the numbers actually say
In 2013, the Christmas special “Buckin’ Mammy” was watched by 9.4 million in the UK.
In 2018, it was still pulling 7.9 million.
The 2020 Christmas special drew 3.8 million.
In 2024, the festive special hit a low point of 2.2 million.
That’s decline, sure. But it’s also staying power. And in August 2025, the BBC launched a brand-new four-episode fifth series. A decade on, with a supposedly “dead” sitcom. That’s resilience most shows would kill for.
Let’s not forget the spin-off All Round to Mrs Brown’s. You don’t give a sitcom a primetime variety spin-off unless there’s a hungry audience.
Who it serves
Here’s the thing: Mrs Brown’s Boys serves people that modern TV often forgets.
Older viewers — boomers, for shorthand — grew up with sitcoms. On radio, on television, all through their lives. Yet the last fifteen years have replaced scripted comedy with reality-competition hybrids. Bake a cake, shag on an island, cry in a villa. Meanwhile, traditional half-hour sitcoms have all but disappeared.
Mrs Brown’s Boys may be crude. It may be broad. But for many, it’s a familiar rhythm of family chaos, jokes you can follow, and a warm invitation into the living room. It says: you still matter. And that matters.
Why the middle class hate it
It’s not complicated. Middle-class audiences are raised on a different comedy diet: sarcasm, irony, subtle observation. If you’ve been taught to prize The Office or Peep Show as the pinnacle of wit, then yes, a fart gag from Agnes Brown will make you groan.
But here’s the rub: not everything is for you. And that’s fine. What’s not fine is mocking the people who do enjoy it, as though they’ve failed an intelligence test.
A quick word on controversy
Yes, stereotypes exist in the show — Agnes Brown is built from the “Irish Mammy” archetype, and the whole family leans on broad Irish character tropes. Some critics see this as clichéd, others view it as affectionate parody written by someone inside the culture.
And yes, Brendan O’Carroll has had to apologise for comments made off-screen, including a read-through where a racial term was implied. These things matter and deserve acknowledgement. But crucially, the mainstream TV series itself has rarely aired the kind of outright racist, sexist, or homophobic material you’d find in older sitcoms like On the Buses or Are You Being Served?. Its controversies have mostly been off-screen or about style, not about direct broadcast slurs.
Why I defend it (even though I don’t watch it now)
1. Comedy belongs to everyone. Taste ≠ intelligence. Sneering at people’s laughter is the least funny thing you can do.
2. It proves sitcoms still work. Even at “low” numbers, millions still choose it over slicker options. That’s demand, plain and simple.
3. It’s better than the alternative. I’ll say it: I hate reality TV. Haven’t watched it in years. And if Mrs Brown’s Boys didn’t exist, chances are its slot would be filled by yet another competition-slash-reality hybrid, presented by Rylan. Between a crude sitcom and more people baking while crying on an island, I’ll take the sitcom every time.
The bigger picture: sitcoms are an endangered species
The real problem isn’t whether Mrs Brown’s Boys makes you laugh or groan. It’s that it’s practically the last of its breed: a mainstream, populist sitcom that isn’t afraid to be silly.
Imagine if commissioners backed more. Imagine sitcoms from diverse voices, telling different kinds of stories, offering both sharp wordplay and big belly laughs. Instead, we get endless panel shows and reality formats.
Mrs Brown’s Boys shows there’s still an appetite. The BBC wouldn’t keep commissioning it otherwise.
Final word to the haters
If you don’t like it, great. Watch something else. But don’t sneer at the millions who do. Don’t mistake your bubble for the entire audience. And don’t pretend that laughter only counts if it’s clever enough for a broadsheet review.
Mrs Brown’s Boys isn’t perfect. It’s broad, it’s messy, sometimes it’s clumsy. But it’s also proof that sitcoms still have a place. And in a world drowning in reality TV, that’s something worth defending.
So please, leave Mrs Brown’s Boys alone. Not because it’s flawless, but because comedy is allowed to be different things to different people.
Because here’s the real punchline: the UK doesn’t need fewer sitcoms, it needs more. Big, broad, clever, silly, messy, witty — all of them. Not everyone wants to watch people all living together while stabbing each other in the back. Some of us just want to laugh at a daft family in a living room. Let’s stop sneering and start commissioning.
Agree (probably not)? Let me know in the comments.
Thank you!
