THEATRE: Mrs Brown’s cultural contribution

Feb 29 2008 by Philip Key, Liverpool Daily Post

Philip Key talks to Brendan O’Carroll about his alter-ego as a feisty, foul-mouthed pensioner

SHE is a brassy, swearing, hard-drinking, cigarette-smoking Irish pensioner who would make grown men blush. But Mrs Brown has become a Liverpool comedy legend.

Created by Irish comedian Brendan O’Carroll, Mrs Brown has starred in three stage comedies which have filled the city’s theatres over the years, and promises to do so again at the Liverpool Empire from March 10.

Audiences just could not get enough of her, so O’Carroll was not surprised when asked to write a fourth comedy for the character for Liverpool’s year as European Capital of Culture.

His only problem, he says, was – could he do it?

“The other three were so successful, I wondered if I could write anything as good.”

The request came two years ago and ideas have been mulling over in his head ever since.

In the event, when he came down to write For the Love of Mrs Brown, he completed it in four days.

“I write through the night, starting at midnight and finishing at seven in the morning. When you have got kids in the house, it’s the only time when the house is quiet.”

Each morning, his wife, Jenny – who has played his daughter in all the shows – takes a look at what he has done.

“But she is my wife and she loves me so when she tells me it is brilliant you don’t know whether it is or she is just delighted that you’re writing.”

He has used the same team of actors in all his plays. “So, once the script is completed, I get them together for the first read-through and watch them to see if they laugh.

“You see, they know the characters inside out and if they do laugh that is OK.

“But then you get to rehearsals and when you rehearse it and rehearse again it’s like hearing the same joke over and over again. It’s funny when you first hear it, but after 10 times you are pleading not to be told that joke again.”

By opening night, he says, he is standing in the wings asking himself again if the show is funny.

“You know as soon as you hit the lights and get that first laugh. Then you kid yourself and say you knew that would get a laugh. You lying devil.”

The new comedy – he calls it the fourth part of a trilogy – was tried out in Glasgow, generally reckoned to be the comedians’ graveyard.

“I remember doing a gig there in my early years as a stand-up and I was nervous as I heard they ate comedians for lunch. I was gagging away and not getting a very good reaction and there were these two drunk guys at the side of the stage.

“One shouted ‘Maybe it’s the accent’ and the other replied “Nae, I understand every word and he’s just nae f------ funny!’ That was my introduction.”

Things must have changed since then. The Glasgow preview for the new show went down a storm – “ a real howler”, O’Carroll reports.

“It was given an amazing reception, standing ovations. In Liverpool, if a show is good enough, it gets a standing ovation but in Glasgow if it’s good enough there’s just a round of applause. But for this we had a standing ovation every night.”

Mind you, O’Carroll claims that the show is “not just the funniest Mrs Brown but the funniest thing I have ever written.

“I just thank the comedy gods because I don’t know where it came from.”