The Real Mrs. Brown: The Authorised Biography of Brendan O'Carroll (21 page)

Brendan never did write the ending for this particular film.
The Boxer
ceased to be about Barry McGuigan, and instead became the story of an IRA man, a former boxer, who comes out of prison and refuses to return to the ring. Daniel Day Lewis played the lead role of Danny Flynn, and, it has to be said, did a typically brilliant job.

As Brendan got more and more involved in the film world and international book deals, he looked for support from those closest to him. But it wasn’t Doreen he was turning to instinctively for support any more, it was Jenny. ‘I guess we were on the same page, whereas Doreen wasn’t overly interested in that world. She was making sure the family were all fine.’

The strain on Brendan’s marriage would develop as he headed deep into the film world.

Hot Milk And Pepper

THE CANADIAN adventure had shown Brendan indeed had wings. But like Icarus he’d flown too close to the sun and been badly burned. He’d landed his international book deal and written
Sparrow’s Trap
. But what to do next? Irish TV station RTÉ came up with an answer.

‘After that major appearance on
The Late, Late Show
and the success of
Mrs Browne’s Boys
on radio, RTÉ sent out a command to their producers, “Get O’Carroll into something. Get him in everything.”

‘I could have written my name on a piece of toilet paper and they’d have used it. But, to be honest, television didn’t really appeal to me; my thinking at the time was it didn’t pay that well and it uses up a lot of comedy material. So you have to limit yourself. However, RTÉ kept coming up with ideas over a two-year period, to front
Ireland’s Funniest Videos
, that sort of thing. But I kept saying no.’

It was only during a trip to London, when Brendan turned up to the opening of
Riverdance
at the Hammersmith Apollo, that he began to rethink his attitude towards TV.

‘At the break I bumped into the controller of programmes for RTÉ and he said, “Look, Brendan, we’ve offered you almost fifteen programme formats. And you’ve turned them all down.”

‘“Well, I don’t think the time is right to do television.”

‘“The truth of it is, Brendan, RTÉ gave you your first break. In the past two years you’ve been on
The Late, Late Show
five times. There has to be some payback.”

‘The next day we were gigging in Manchester and I thought, “You know, he’s right. I do owe RTÉ.” So I made the decision that the next thing they offered me, I’d do it. And it wasn’t long. About two months later I was offered a quiz show. I agreed to do it and RTÉ were stunned. And delighted.’

Brendan decided the name of the show would be
Hot Milk And Pepper
, a reference to the drink he’d once served Margaret Thatcher.

‘We went through the format and it was okay and then I asked what Gerry’s role was. The producer, Gerald Heffernan, looked at me blankly.

‘Nothing.’

‘Nothing? No, you don’t understand. It’s Brendan and Gerry. We’re a team.

‘So they came up with a device whereby Gerry read out the scores and announced the prizes. Gerry was delighted. And the credits for the show would read:
Starring Brendan O’Carroll . . . and Gerry Browne.’

Brendan saw
Hot Milk And Pepper
as an experiment; it wasn’t exciting television and it certainly never played to his strengths, i.e. allowing him to be himself. But it was an opportunity to reach kids and that section of Middle Ireland that might be offended by his stage show. He decided that in the next series he would be looking for more control.

‘The best bits were edited out. I don’t think it was done deliberately. The way it was edited made it very disjointed. But I liked doing it. In for two weeks, twenty-eight shows recorded, take the money and good luck.’

But Brendan was soon able to see the bigger picture. Almost literally. Thanks to
The Mammy
. The book had gone on to reach the bestseller list in 28 countries. The tale of Agnes Browne – mischievous, irascible and yet warm – was so popular, so universal a character, it would have come as no surprise had the publishers called to announce the book was to be translated into Apache. It was surely only a matter of time till Hollywood came calling.

Meantime, Brendan and Gerry were back touring Ireland with their comedy show (now far softer than
The Outrageous Comedy Show
), selling out 600-seater theatres. Brendan loved the live audience. This was so much more fun than the routine of the TV quiz show. And he loved to meet the fans and sign autographs at the stage door. Brendan was certainly attracting his share of female attention.

‘Occasionally, a girl would ask you your hotel room number, for sure. But you’d put them off, in a nice way. I certainly didn’t want to spend the night with the girl that wanted to spend the night with me. I wanted to be with the one that didn’t want to be with me. At every gig, there was somebody who was mesmerised by this thing that’s on the stage because, God love them, they don’t have a fulfilled life of their own. They want to be part of your life. Now, I’d be a liar if I said I didn’t look at some young women and think, “God, she’s lovely!” But I wasn’t into a quick bang-bang.’

And of course he had Doreen and three kids at home. But where was Doreen at this point? Life with Brendan had never been easy for her. She’d stood by her man through a whole range of traumas, from The Abbot’s Castle to the financial crash of
The Course
. She’d watched Brendan climb ladders with book deals, make it onto TV with
The Late, Late Show
and
Hot Milk And Pepper
.

But Brendan was away from home a great deal and he was far from the man Doreen had married. He was forging his own path, dealing with the adulation of fans and the like. Although not all of Ireland was in love with him. Comedian Sean Hughes, for example, had made repeated derogatory references to Brendan at a recent Dublin show. But Brendan took the criticism in his stride.

Brendan, it seemed, at forty-one, couldn’t win over the next generation of comedians who appeared in Dublin stand-up clubs such as The Attic and Lillies. Many were critical of the O’Carroll comedy show, claiming it to be old-fashioned, obvious and crude.

But as Brendan says, ‘By this time we had made four videos of the shows, and between them they sold a quarter of a million copies. There couldn’t have been a quarter of a million eejits out there.’

Brendan hoped a TV company would offer drama or sitcom work but, meantime, he had another, bigger idea. At the end of 1996 he began pitching his film script.
Sparrow’s Trap
had sold well as a novel. It had a cracking storyline. Why wouldn’t it make a great film? And indeed Brendan believed it could launch a series of RTÉ films.

But doesn’t pride always come before a fall?

In Brendan’s case the fall would be spectacular.

Mammy Mia!

BRENDAN sums up his creative life pre-1992 (when Mrs Browne was born) with a succinct line.

‘I’d done nothing really. Then I did the stand-up, the radio series and
The Late, Late Show
. Then, over the next five years, I wrote three plays, four novels, two screenplays and made four stand-up videos. Why the explosion? I think this was all a result of the dumbing down I’d imposed on myself. It was all inside, desperate to come out.’

He’d tried to unleash his comedy talent along the way. He’d won the talent competition, he’d tried pirate radio, he’d worked for a comedian, but never managed success. Then the radio show came about – and it all changed. Brendan was born on the same day as Agnes Browne.

However, he dismisses the notion that his talent was always there, waiting to boil to the surface. ‘I’ve always been funny. That’s not a boast, it’s just a fact. People have always laughed at me. But it’s not talent, it’s attitude. It’s about making the leap. Lots of people, for example, could write a play, or at least make a passable attempt, but they just don’t have the attitude. It’s about facing the sun, rather than turning your back and wondering why your face is full of frost.

‘I think I’m lucky in that I’ve always seen possibilities, whether it’s trying to grow my own food on a farm or setting up a company to sell videos. The ideas don’t work out, but I’ve never been afraid of failure. Most people see the negatives as soon as they come up with an idea. I see the positives. And the ideas keep on appearing.’

It’s true. Once when we were chatting over coffee, we were talking about writing short stories – we had both read each other’s most recent efforts. Brendan suggested an idea for a book of great short stories that could go into hotel rooms, free, but sponsored, giving guests an option beyond the Gideon Bible. The idea was developed, until pressures of work saw it fade. Had Brendan had the time, his belief, his energy, could have made it work.

In January and February, Brendan was set to tour again with the show
The Story So Far
, appearing at the likes of Dublin’s Olympia. Brendan also took off to New York for a stand-up comedy tour, with his entourage, and such was his success in the Big Apple that he could hardly move in the bar of the Fitzpatrick Hotel without being greeted by passers-by who had seen his performance the night before.

‘Now, with all that comes a feeling of invincibility. But there is a huge difference between having a very positive mental attitude and being an idiot.

‘Sometimes when you are that idiot, you just don’t see that difference. So, by the start of 1997, in my own mind I was a god. I was invincible. And I decided I was going to make a movie.’

The one-time gambler would actually go on to make two movies, almost simultaneously. Whom the gods would destroy, they first imbue with rampant self-belief?

‘I’m very aware of the fact that I have an excessive personality,’ he admits. ‘When I gambled, I really gambled. I don’t gamble at all now. I wouldn’t even back a horse on Saint Stephen’s Day. I don’t do the Lotto. I wouldn’t even do the Grand National. I know now I have access to money and I could blow it all. I genuinely could. When you’re gargling, you can only gargle so much before you pass out. But I could blow savings, the house, the kids’ future, all in one day.’

The gambler didn’t see the next two projects to come his way as high risk. Hollywood came calling. Not in a Cecil B. DeMille multimillion pound
Cleopatra
way, but not quite in a
Carry On Cleo
low-budget manner, either.

Back in the 1970s, film producer Greg Smith had read a bawdy comedy book called
Confessions of a Window-cleaner
and managed to convince the film industry it should be made into a movie. Now, having recently finished filming
Great Expectations
in the States and ready to fly back to Britain, while passing the time in the airport bookshop he happened to spot an interesting book cover. It was
The Mammy
, with the sticker ‘
The No.
1
Bestseller
’
attached, and Greg bought it. By the time he arrived in London, he’d read of the adventures of Agnes Browne and her brood – and was hooked.

‘This guy called Greg Smith called me up one day and said he represented the Disney Corporation. I said, “Feck off!” and hung up. I thought it was someone taking the mick. Disney and
The Mammy
together? I don’t think so. But it turned out he was from Buena Vista, which is their adult arm. Then he called back and asked who owned the film rights to
The Mammy
.’

Brendan said he did. (He’d been smart enough to make sure that clause was in his contract with O’Brien.)

‘Greg wanted me to meet with his partner Morgan O’Sullivan, who was based in Ireland with Admiral Studios.’

The pair met and one of the first things sorted out was what to call the film.
The Mammy
wasn’t seen as a real possibility – it evoked thoughts of Al Jolson or colonial slave plantations to mind. And while the title
Mrs Browne
would have been a real possibility, Billy Connolly and Judi Dench had beaten them to it. So they settled on
Agnes Browne
.

But there were going to be many fights to be fought.

‘They wouldn’t let me write the screenplay (they didn’t know I’d written
Sparrow’s Trap
and probably would have cared even less), so they brought in a hired gun to write it, which was fair enough. He was English and had never been to Ireland. I wasn’t arguing with that point. The blokes who’d written
Star Trek
had never been to space.’

John Goldsmith travelled to Dublin for a day to meet Brendan, who showed him around the world of Agnes Browne.

And so the writer set off to produce the first draft of the script based on Brendan’s novel. Meantime, Brendan had his own writing commitments. He’d been working hard on his first book for Penguin,
The Young Wan
, which was released in the autumn of 1997. It was the story of the young Agnes Browne, before she was a Mammy, when she was Agnes Reddin, a young girl growing up in The Jarro in Dublin.