6.5million see Mrs Brown's Boys live

Ratings smash for BBC One

The live episode of Mrs Brown’s Boys attracted 6.5million viewers to BBC One on Saturday night.

It shattered the average audience of 4.5million the channel normally gets for the 9.45pm slot, with the live element ensuring fans watched at the time, rather than on catch-up.

The show contained plenty of F-bombs, opening with a ‘Feck off!’ as Agnes Brown, played by Brendan O’Carroll. said: ‘You're all very welcome to Mrs Brown's Boys Live. That means this can't be edited. Somebody will be leaving the BBC on Monday!’

O’Carroll messed with the crew during the broadcast: He pulled out his earpiece, mocked director Bob Kellett and a cameraman, and forced his cast-mates to attempt tricky dialogue in the hope they would slip up

The episode was most notable for O'Carroll stepping out of character and addressing the audience at home, saying: ‘If you ever feel lonely or a bit down turn on the television and flick to comedy. From Dad's Army to Fawlty Towers or Only Fools And Horses. We'll be there – you can depend on that.’

However the show – which aired live on Ireland’s RTE, as well as BBC One – was, as usual, disliked by critics.

The Irish Independent said a few minutes of O’Carroll’s pantomiming mischief with the fact it was live ‘might have raised a chuckle or two [but] stretched to 30 minutes it was tedious and grossly self-indulgent’.

And awarding two stars, the Daily Telegraph said the episode was ‘a cobbled together cavalcade of toilet jokes and physical japery’ but acknowledged that the show was ‘the Donald Trump of sitcoms’ as it is ‘hated by the intelligentsia but followed by millions.

Indeed, 37,000 fans applied for the 400 tickets available to be in the studio for the broadcast. And one viewer called Fron clearly loved the show, with her reaction going viral:

Suffice to say Fron thoroughly enjoyed #MBBLive 😂 @MrsBrownsBoys @RTEOne @BBCOne 😭 pic.twitter.com/OmHbpsrAx2
— James Butler (@JamesPatrice) July 23, 2016

Mrs Brown’s Boys Live was a curtain-raiser for the BBC’s Landmark Sitcom season, celebrating the best of the genre, with a number of reboots, pilots and factual shows planned for the autumn.