Mrs Brown’s Boys creator Brendan O’Carroll has said the bond of trust between him and all his family members who work on Mrs Brown’s Boys help make the comedy the success it has become.
The Irish comedian stars as matriarch Agnes Brown in the hit BBC show - which started as a stage show, became an award-winning TV series and is now on the big screen in Mrs Brown's Boys D’Movie.
Brendan’s second wife, Jennifer Gibney, plays Mrs Brown’s daughter Cathy in the show, while his son Danny, daughter Fiona, sister Eilish and grandson Jamie also all work on the comedy.
Brendan said: “There’s a great shorthand between [the family] and without getting too gushy about it, there’s a great love. We really do love each other.
“When you're working together on something like this, when you’re in Australia to do a show in front of seven and a half thousand people in an arena, you’re completely dependent on the people around you to turn up.
“That inter-dependency just adds a little extra edge of love when they come through, and they come through time after time.”
But the actor insists the casting of the show wasn’t about nepotism - it all happened by accident.
“It didn’t happen that we as a family started working together,” Brendan explained. “It happened very much step-by-step. First it was just me. Jenny was working in the show but we weren’t having anything to do with each other - I didn’t even like her! But we fell for each other and we got married.
“And then Fiona was taking a year out and stepped in and fell for my producer and married him. So now all of a sudden I’m having my wife, my daughter and my son-in-law in the show, but that’s not the way it was planned!
“Danny then stepped in as Buster and made the part his own. He fell for one of the actresses and they married, so now I’ve got six of them on the road, and they all start breeding like rabbits, and the next thing there’s little babies everywhere.
“It’s very hard to throw a stone without hitting a relative!”
Mrs Brown's Boys D’Movie is in cinemas now.
