It's just a man in a feckin' dress!

Do you watch "Mrs Brown's Boys"?  Do you like "Mrs Brown's Boys"?  Have you even heard of "Mrs Brown's Boys"?  It's a bit of a TV phenomenon - the BBC (who put it on) virtually ignore it.  Unlike other programmes it's not endlessly "trailed", and until recently it tended to get the "graveyard shift" slots late at night.  It's either ignored or slagged off mercilessly by the critics - and yet it gets some of the highest viewing figures of anything on the box outside of the soaps.  Why?  Well, if I knew the answer to that I wouldn't be writing this blog - I'd be sipping martinis beside my pool on my private island in the sun.  But I have a couple of thoughts - firstly it's unpretentious, it doesn't try to be clever, it just concentrates on being entertaining and funny, and it does that very well.  Secondly, it's honest - it's played on a stage before a live audience, and if things go wrong, they go wrong, and the actors deal with it in real time, and "Mrs Brown" frequently breaches the "fourth wall" and talks directly to the audience and camera.  But the one thing that really endears it to me above all others, is that at the end of the show, the actors come front of stage and take a bow in true theatre tradition - as though to say "It's just a play folks".  If you're very straight-laced you might find some of it offensive - but then if you're that straight-laced you probably don't like comedy anyway. Otherwise, if you've not already come across it, give it a try - I don't think you'll be disappointed.