YMMV / Mrs. Brown's Boys

• Adaptation Displacement:
  • Believe it or not, this started out as a radio and a stage show. Unfortunately, this is probably the main reason that it is criticised for being stale.
  • For those that don't know, The Mammy is the first of three books about Mrs Brown and set directly after her husband's death, and was written by Brendan O'Carroll.
• Critical Dissonance: The film has been savaged by professional critics, with only one positive review out of twelve according to Rotten Tomatoes. Cinema audiences were slightly more positive, giving mixed reviews.
• Critic-Proof: Two examples:
  • The series regularly attracts a reasonably-sized audience, despite being pretty universally despised by critics. Nick Hilton, writing about the 2024 New Year's Day special in The Independent, states that the show has been "roundly condemned as “utterly awful” by the entire journalistic establishment".
  • The film has been savaged by critics, with only 8% on Rotten Tomatoes (with twelve reviews overall), and out of regular cinemagoers only 45% admitted to liking it. In spite of this, it made over £4 million in its first weekend, beating out The Fault in Our Stars which opened with under £2 million, then went on to remain highest-grossing for the next weekend by taking a further two million. It lost the position to Transformers: Age of Extinction and How to Train Your Dragon 2 the week after that, although this was something of a given. Brendan O'Carroll has said that a sequel may well be made based on the financial success.
• Designated Villain: Hilary in her first appearance. She was invited to Agnes' house and was polite at first, and then spent the majority of the endeavour insulted by a drunken Agnes and bearing witness to her usual insane antics. When she finally complained, Maria and the family turned on her and labelled her a Jerkass. Later episodes made her a bit more of a Worthy Opponent for Agnes.
• Heartwarming Moments:
  • In the Christmas Special when Trevor comes home. Mrs Brown doesn't say a word, and just hugs her son. It sticks out among the rest of the show.
  • In Mammy's Valentine, Grandad gives Agnes flowers.
  Agnes: Who are them flowers for?
  Grandad: You. My son never knew when he had a good thing. Happy Valentine's Day.
  Agnes: I've never had flowers... ever. *Beat* Property of St. Francis' Cemetery.
  • While Mrs. Brown seems to put Winnie through hell half the time by the end of the day, the two are each others closest friends. The best example would be when Agnes makes Dermot give the money from the raffle scheme he and Buster cooked up to Winnie to pay for her husbands operation because he's her best friend. Later Winnie tells her that she never married her best friend, but that she moved in beside them. Which is of course ruined when Agnes then asks who the feck she was talking about.

---