Comic says Shedites will air this autumn

Mrs Brown’s Boys creator Brendan O'Carroll has landed a new BBC sitcom.

The comedian says bosses ‘loved’ the pilot of his new show Shedites, and that it will air this autumn

Starring veteran comic Tommy Cannon, 86, the show is about about lonely men and their sheds.

Quoted in The Sun, O’Carroll said: ‘It’s using comedy to touch on men's mental health. The BBC loved the pilot. Hopefully it will be out in the fall.’

The 30-minute pilot was shot in April after several years of development. It was written by Paddy Houlihan, who co-writes Mrs Brown's Boys with O'Carroll, and stars as Dermot.

O’Carroll produces Shedites and stars as one of the main characters. He told The Sun last year that ‘no one is going to mistake me for Mrs Brown cause I'll have a beard and a moustache in this’.

At the time he added: 'I've been advocating for the BBC to make this show for a long time because as well as being really funny, it ­highlights men's mental health.

‘It's not something men talk about, but it's got easier because of the men's shed movement which has sprung up in UK and Ireland.

‘There's a kitchen, a card table and all that but even more important, men can go there and talk through their problems.’

In his 2022 autobiography, O’Carroll opened up about the mental health issues he suffered when he was trying to break into the industry.

He wrote: ‘I was on the edge of a breakdown, a clinician would have said I was depressed, definitely. I have never been as low before or since. I was numb, it was like I walked down a dark alley and I couldn't remember the way out.’

Despite being little loved by critics, Mrs Brown's Boys was named best comedy at last month's National Television Awards, which is voted on by viewers.

O’Carroll, 69, recently said he did not mind dividing opinion as  comedy is subjective.

He said: ‘There's comedians that people find really funny who I then go, "I don't really get that", you know? They went through a stage where comedy started to get really snarky and people punching down, and I'd be looking and I went, "I don't know…"

He accepted his work was ‘Marmite’… ‘people either love or they fucking hate it. "And you're gonna have to accept that that's the way it is. All I have to try and make sure is that people who love it, I don't let them down... I don't try and change to fuckiong convert the others. I am what I am.'

Published: 14 Oct 2024