Mrs Brown’s Boys Christmas special review: This is a crime against comedy

Get our free weekly email for all the latest cinematic news from our film critic Clarisse Loughrey Get our The Life Cinematic email for free Get our The Life Cinematic email for free SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy You may remember the story a few months ago that Brendan O’Carroll, the actor who created and plays the eponymous matriarch Agnes in Mrs Brown’s Boys, had to apologise for making a “clumsy” joke where “a racial term was implied” during rehearsals for the Christmas special. Yet again, there’s some unacceptably dull scatological humour, this year with friend of the Brown family Buster, dressed in a poo emoji costume because he’s a human advertising stunt for constipation medicine. Mrs Nicholson would actually be quite an interesting character if she was drawn as a truly imperious sadistic allegory for Britain’s 800-year occupation of the island of Ireland, a real Cruella, and something Blake is well capable of portraying with appropriate iciness; but it turns out Mrs Nicholson has a disappointingly warm heart after all, and redeems herself with the donation of a gigantic turkey for the slap-up supper. The ‘Mrs Brown’s Boys’ Christmas special It’s worth saying, as I find myself having to write every year about O’Carroll’s undeniably popular creation, that coarse, scatological, filthy, jokes in poor taste have an honourable role to play in the ecosystem of comedy – provided they are actually funny.