The Real Mrs. Brown: The Authorised Biography of Brendan O'Carroll (31 page)

Brendan’s
Mrs Brown Rides Again
went down a storm at the Olympia in Dublin in January 2003, playing an incredible 31 shows. The accolades came thick and fast with the
Irish People,
for example, describing the Agnes Brown creator as ‘Ireland’s most successful comic writer’.

The O’Carroll roadshow then took off to New York in time for the St Patrick’s Day celebrations as part of an 11-city, 70-bookstore tour of America to promote his books, in particular
The Young Wan.

His right hand was aching from the constant signing of autographs, and no doubt his face muscles had been stretched into a smile too many times to count, but Brendan was feeling exhausted, sitting in the dining room of the Fitzpatrick Manhattan Hotel, for a different reason.

‘I had sidestepped the hotel’s raucous party the night before, but stayed up late. I stayed up watching the news on Iraq, watching war begin. And I was worried. I thought, “Bush has no foreign policy knowledge.”’

Brendan agreed to a series of interviews on his trip. During one chat in New York with the
Irish Voice
, Brendan revealed the generous side of his nature when the interviewer referred to him as ‘Mr Brown’ and he offered no correction. He doesn’t often suffer fools gladly.

But he certainly didn’t hold back from putting fellow Irish writer Bill Cullen in his place during the same chat. Bill is a businessman and author of
It’s A Long Way From Penny Apples
, his own story of growing up poor in North Dublin, and working in the markets of Moore Street. Bill Cullen butted in as Brendan was just about to talk about
The Young Wan
and how the prequel to
The Mammy
emerged.

‘Five thousand copies of my book sold out last night on the QVC shopping channel in two minutes,’ boasted Cullen to Brendan. And he added, ‘That’s a hundred thousand dollars in two minutes.’

‘Really? I have five books of my own,’ countered Brendan. ‘And can’t you see I am being interviewed?’

Brendan says he enjoyed Cullen’s opus. But he couldn’t imagine Agnes Brown having anything to do with that ever-so-serious Dublin world.

‘She would have had feck-all to do with all those negative Nellies in his book. They would have been too heavy for her.

‘I knew a few Nellies in my day. But they’re not for me either. That’s why I select memories. My memories are all very happy. The other ones I can’t remember.’

The book tour had gone well, although it was not without incident. Brendan wasn’t even wearing his Agnes skirt and cardie when he was propositioned by a man.

‘I was having a drink before a reading in Sonoma, California, and this old guy comes up to me.’ Brendan takes on a hillbilly accent. ‘“You got nice teeth, boy, like a woman.”’

The terrified comedian and staunchly heterosexual father-of-three ran away from his potential suitor.

‘It was like a scene from
Deliverance
,’ he says, of the Burt Reynolds hillbilly horror movie. ‘All that was missing was the banjo.’

Brendan knew these book promotions were important, not just to the publisher who’d given him such a nice advance, but to his production company.

‘By this time I was supporting forty people – everyone: the cast, the crew, the production team back in the office.’

He was determined none of his ‘family’ would struggle as he had as a youngster.

‘We did okay back then. We thought we were rich. We just didn’t have any money.’

But then again, he wasn’t slow in inviting as many people along on the circus ride as he could afford. Or even, at times, not afford. Fiona, Danny and Eric, now ten, were all part of the travelling O’Carroll book tour.

‘My publisher Viking wanted to know why I needed eleven hotel rooms in New York. I said they were for my family and friends.’

Back in the UK, it was time to tour again with
Mrs Brown Rides Again
. Again, the audiences were more than prepared to saddle up.

‘She remains a classic comic invention,’ said the
Liverpool Post.
‘A sixtyish woman with a well-rounded figure, she strides through her family home like a tiger, sometimes protecting her young from would-be suitors, sometimes attacking them.’

Brendan took the moment to appreciate how far he’d come, from rags to riches in the form of the movie deals, to losing the lot, and now to building a Mrs Brown empire.

‘You know, I’d love to be able to say that I had a grand plan, but it’s not true. There have been things that have happened to me and I’ve thought it was the end of the world, but then I’ve discovered it was meant to be. Everything happens for a reason. I guess my writing comes from these sorts of experiences.’

Brendan had developed his own philosophy on life, part Buddhist, part Zen. He had come to believe life was pretty much mapped out, but if you get a signpost you should follow it. And if you have a negative experience, try your hardest to see the positive in it.

If he has some regrets, it was having spent so many years trying to be a great waiter or a great cleaner. What he should have done is follow in the footsteps of Brendan Grace and try sooner to become a great comedian. That’s why he encourages his kids and friends to follow the path they feel they are pulled to. Therein, happiness lies.

In 2004, he loved the experience of working on the Channel 4 comedy
Max and Paddy’s Road To Nowhere
, starring Peter Kay and Paddy McGuinness. Brendan played Gipsy Joe, an Irish crook who sells Max and Paddy a dodgy TV set.

Brendan and Peter Kay in particular would go on to become good friends.

Yet, while Brendan was now moving in established comedy circles (TV writer Caroline Aherne became a big fan, and she’d later write comedy drama
The Security Men
for her Irish pal, in which he’d star alongside Bobby Ball and Paddy McGuinness), he still had pitfalls to face.

Yes, he could do no wrong in places such as Glasgow, Birmingham and Liverpool, reprising
Good Mourning
to loud acclaim. But in Manchester, the response was now more muted.

And reviews from the likes of the
Manchester Evening News
weren’t entirely favourable.

‘Smash hits they might well be, but there is little attempt to disguise the fact that his trilogy of Agnes Brown plays are merely a platform to transport Brendan O’Carroll’s anarchic surreal sense of humour. Whenever he leaves the stage, the whole shebang falls a little flat.’

It’s hard to argue the plays aren’t a platform for Brendan’s sense of humour; he writes them. He created a window into a world of farce and fun. But implied in the critique was a danger Mrs Brown fans would become a little bored looking at the same scenery.

In 2005, it was back to the beginning of the trilogy with
Last Wedding
doing the rounds. But in August that year, Brendan’s thoughts were on a real wedding. His. He and Jenny married in Florida, with a huge cast of family and friends in attendance, including BoyZone star Keith Duffy.

‘It was a magical day. I couldn’t have been happier. I knew Jenny was the woman I wanted to be with for the rest of my life.’

Brendan also decided to take a break from wearing the wig and women’s tights. He went back to the relative simplicity of stand-up, touring his show
How’s Your Wibbly Wobbly Wonder
?

‘Being a stand-up is like playing poker, you look the audience in the eye and ask them to suspend disbelief because you’re about to tell them stories that are not true. It’s like “two elephants walking down a street”. Two elephants don’t walk down a street, they don’t talk to each other, and one of them does not wear sunglasses. But, unless I get them to picture that, and for that moment believe it, the joke is not going to work.’

That’s not to say Agnes didn’t make an appearance, vocally at least, and the show sent audiences home happy. Interestingly, Brendan’s material had altered immeasurably from the stints in the early Nineties. This was a much more family-friendly Dubliner in evidence. Albeit, with more than a few fecks thrown in.

In the summer of 2006, Brendan was back in Florida but this time he had invited a couple of guests along: myself and my partner, Fiona. It was a chance to spend time with Brendan away from the pressures of performing, relaxing with his family. That’s not to say he ever relaxed totally at his gorgeous villa in Kissimmee. During the stint, he was working on a deal for a syndicated cartoon series of
Mrs Brown’s Boys
, which he eventually concluded. And he did come up with ideas.

What was particularly fascinating to watch was his closeness with Jenny, with his grandchildren, and how he simply loved having his family around.

‘They mean everything to me. All this, it’s for them. I work thirty weeks a year and the rest of the time I’m here. I’m not going to give up on the time I have with the kids.’

What did the week reveal to the biographer? Many things. What he once said about loving cleaning products since his time as a cleaner in Jeyes in Finglas is true. Walk down the domestic product supermarket aisle with him and the blue eyes light up.

In a more serious moment, however, Brendan revealed how Agnes Brown was both a blessing and weight on his shoulders.

‘I don’t want to be playing her forever. I’m fifty-one years of age and I don’t want to be putting on the false tits for too much longer. What I want to be able to do is make enough money to be able to retire and do something else. Politics. TV. Whatever.’

Brendan certainly wasn’t in that sort of financial league. But he believed the dream could still happen.

Meanwhile, the holiday over, it was back to being Agnes Brown, performing all three plays consecutively across the UK with three weeks of Mrs Brown festivals. The strategy certainly didn’t do the O’Carroll bank balance any harm. But he knew he’d have to come up with a new show, such was the demand for a fresher Brown family. And so the ‘fourth in the trilogy’ emerged,
For the Love of Mrs Brown
. It was a play that took Agnes in a whole new direction. In fact, right out of the window.

The central storyline involves Agnes realising (to paraphrase Benny Hill’s comedy milkman Ernie) ‘a woman’s needs are many-fold’. After friend Winnie McGooghan reveals she once had ‘an organism’, Agnes too reckons it’s time to have some fun in life.

Meantime, Rory leaves behind some recreational pharmaceuticals in Agnes’s kitchen, which she takes, thinking they’re for heartburn. The result is Mrs Brown on LSD. In one of the best sight gags ever to have played out in a theatre, a drug-fuelled Agnes appears in a Wonder Woman costume and proceeds to fly right through the back-door window.

It’s a scene that brings the roof off every theatre it plays in.

Brendan had come back with a bang. Subplots? Yes, lots as usual, such as Cathy announcing to her mammy she wants a boob job. A puzzled Agnes replies, ‘But Cathy, you’ve got a job!’

And sex, the main subject matter of
For the Love of
, was right up Brendan’s personal back alley. It took him back to his
Outrageous Comedy
times, and he couldn’t wait to write up naughty gags.

Such as? It’s coming up to Valentine’s Day, and Agnes is thinking about looking for a man on the Internet. Cathy informs her mammy that, ‘If you are going on a first date nowadays, a man will expect you to perform fellatio.’

Agnes looks shocked and says, ‘Me? Sing opera? He’d have a better chance of getting a blow job.’

The show opened in Glasgow in February 2007 to rapturous reaction.

‘I was shitting myself before the opening. You write something you think is funny. But you never know until you start to perform and hear the audience reaction. But it’s been wonderful. Even better than I’d hoped.’

The following year, Brendan and the troupe toured Britain, Ireland and Canada with
For the Love of Mrs Brown.
Critics enjoyed it, and they acknowledged that Agnes Brown fans loved it. But the critical voice in the likes of the
Liverpool Post
was noticeably a little stronger.

‘Admittedly, this series was never intended to be Ibsen, but you still feel that it would make a better sitcom than it does a piece of theatre. The signs are all there: the atrocious theme music, the stereotypes on show, the slapstick comedy and the quick-fire jokes. But the play is overlong and the concept is as stretched as Agnes’s tights. If you are new to the franchise, the show is well worth seeing. But if you have been before, you might feel a sense of déjà vu throughout.’

Were Agnes’s tights becoming a little saggy at the knees? Was the Mrs Brown show starting to wear a little thin? Surely not? Agnes on drugs is hardly a dull concept.

Was the journalist right, however, about the TV notion? Could Mrs Brown work in a TV sitcom format? It had been a radio sitcom back in 1992, but Brendan’s stage show had been running in theatres for over eight years. He had also been filming, making Agnes Brown DVDs for three years and selling them in vast numbers. If it had the potential to be a TV show, wouldn’t someone in the business have recognised it by now?