Brendan O’Carroll ‘gets goosebumps’ that Mrs Brown’s Boys is part of Christmas

Mrs Brown's Boys might not have aired a full series since 2013, but its annual festive specials have become a Christmas tradition that creator Brendan O'Carroll says he still can't believe he's achieved.

The BBC One sitcom is written by O'Carroll and also stars him as the title character, with the cast also including his wife Jennifer Gibney and various other members of their family.

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Only three full series of the comedy were made, but O'Carroll writes two new special episodes each year for Christmas and New Year that are ever popular with viewers.

He told PA: “I absolutely love it – I get goosebumps that Mrs Brown has become part of Christmas.

“That’s what people who come to the show say – ‘Ah, it wouldn’t be Christmas without Mrs Brown’. You’re kinda going ‘Oh my God, we established that’.

“Because in my day that was Morecambe and Wise. It wasn’t Christmas without Morecambe and Wise. So it’s a buzz.”

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The 67-year-old said that he loves to host Christmas Day at home, and often welcomes the sitcom's cast and crew around in the evening to watch the show together.

He said: “Christmas night, we have a pyjama party. So everybody comes, the cast, some of the crew. Everybody comes to our house in their pyjamas. And we have a few drinks and we all watch the Christmas episode (of Mrs Brown’s Boys) together – we all watch it for the first time, we haven’t seen it before.

“It’s a buzz. It’s great. We look at each other and we go ‘No, you were great!’ ‘No, no, you were great!’”

O'Carroll said he felt overwhelmed by the ongoing support for the festive specials from Mrs Brown's Boys fans, who form a live audience as the episodes are filmed.

He said: “They were phenomenal this year, I’m really proud. The BBC tell me that they had the tickets available online for 15 minutes, and there were 35,000 requests for tickets. They can only take 300 in the audience.

“You just go ‘My God almighty, 35,000 people already, in October, want to celebrate Christmas with Mrs Brown’. And that’s lovely.”

Mrs Brown's Boys airs new episodes on Christmas Day at 10.25pm and New Year's Day at 10pm.