Brendan O’Carroll says Mrs Brown’s Boys won’t be cancelled due to political correctness: ‘I only write what I think is funny’

Comedian said he ‘often questioned’ whether ‘dressing up as a woman to play Mrs Brown is the same as blackface’

Mrs Brown’s Boys creator Brendan O'Carroll has insisted that the show will never be cancelled for being politically incorrect.

The Irish comedian stars in the BBC sitcom as matriarch Agnes Brown, a character he has been performing in drag since the 1990s.

However, while many comedies including Little Britain were pulled from streaming in 2020 due to their use of blackface or other offensive stereotypes, O’Carroll told The Irish Sun that he didn’t see Mrs Brown’s Boys going the same way.

“I don’t think Mrs Brown will be affected, and I often question myself: is Mrs Brown, me, a man, dressing up as a woman to play Mrs Brown, the same as blackface?” he said.

“And [I] decided no it’s not, because I’ve never played Mrs Brown as a man playing a woman like they do in films like Mrs Doubtfire. Agnes is a woman like Dame Edna… Overall, it’s very hard to draw the line in comedy. I suppose we all have a remote control, and the ability to buy or not buy a ticket.”

O’Carroll also explained that he “would never go out of my way to be racist or homophobic”, adding: “I’m not that worried myself because I only write what I think is funny, and you hope that enough of an audience agrees with you.”

Mrs Brown’s Boys returned for its annual Christmas special on 25 December, just days after O’Carroll revealed that he had signed a new six-year deal with the BBC.

However, the episode received its lowest viewing figures in nearly a decade, after just 3.8 million viewers tuned into the episode.

The Independent’s Sean O’Grady gave the 2020 Christmas special a one-star review, calling it “a reminder of just how gruesome Brendan O’Carroll’s long-running comedy is”.

A New Year’s special airs tomorrow (1 January) at 10pm on BBC One.