The 2025 Christmas special of Mrs Brown's Boys has managed to sink to what one critic calls "unimaginable new depths" of comedic failure. Broadcast on BBC One on Christmas Day, the show, created by and starring Brendan O'Carroll, has drawn a fiercely negative review from Sean O'Grady, who published his critique on Thursday 25 December 2025.
A Painful Viewing Experience
O'Grady, who has watched the sitcom extensively over its long run, compares the experience to the forced aversion therapy from A Clockwork Orange. He states that while the show has always been painful, this year's festive offering falls far beneath its usual low standard. The special was broadcast in a late slot, around the time many viewers were already asleep, a scheduling decision the reviewer found somewhat merciful.
Excruciating Gags and Lazy Scripts
The review highlights two particularly weak attempts at humour. The first involves an extended and deeply unfunny pub scene where Agnes Brown (O'Carroll) and her friends Winnie McGoogan (Eilish O'Carroll) and Birdie Flanagan (June Rogers) discuss euphemisms for their genitalia. The contrived terms "ladygarden" and "meow meow" build to a punchline from Mammy that O'Grady describes as simply "weird".
The second major failing is a predictable and poorly executed slapstick sequence involving Grandad (Dermot O'Neill) and a VR headset. The joke culminates in him simulating sex with a raw turkey on the kitchen table before falling over, an act deemed utterly devoid of genuine comedic craft.
Nostalgia for Bygone Comedy
The critique suggests that Mrs Brown's Boys now feels so poorly assembled it evokes a strange nostalgia for the more skilled smut of Benny Hill or the honest efforts of Little and Large. O'Grady concludes that the scripts are lazy, the actors poor, and the storyline virtually non-existent.
Despite the scathing assessment, the reviewer acknowledges the show still pulls a decent audience to justify its place in the BBC's Christmas and New Year schedule. However, he openly questions why the BBC continues to commission the series with public funds given its apparent decline in quality, ending with the damning verdict: "Bunch of meow meows, the lot of them."
