Production worker reportedly quit over Mrs Brown's Boy 'clumsy' comment

The racist joke Mrs Brown’s Boys star Brendan O’Carroll told in rehearsals has been reported today.

It comes amid separate reports that a junior member of the production team was so upset by the comment that they walked off the show.

Yesterday the 69-year-old comedian apologised for a a ‘clumsy’ joke where a ‘racial term was implied’.

Today, the Daily Mail reports that he was reading a script in the character of matriarch Agnes Brown when he said ‘I don’t call a spade a spade, I call a spade a…’

He then started to utter the N-word before he was stopped by his wife Jennifer Gibney, in character as Agnes’s daughter Cathy.

O’Carroll’s representative told the newspaper: ‘We would also like to clarify that the "n" word was absolutely not spoken, it was implied. Agnes began the word but was stopped from finishing it by her daughter Cathy, as she knew she would be.’

Meanwhile The Sun reports that  the junior member of staff was so offended by the joke they quit their job. 

The offending comment, made at the BBC’s Pacific Quay studios in Glasgow, was first reported by the Mirror.

When the story broke, O’Carroll said: ‘At a read-through of the Mrs. Brown’s Boys Christmas specials, there was a clumsy attempt at a joke, in the character of Agnes, where a racial term was implied. It backfired and caused offence which I deeply regret and for which I have apologised.'

The BBC added: ‘Whilst we don’t comment on individuals, the BBC is against all forms of racism and we have robust processes in place should issues ever arise.’

Earlier this week, O’Carroll said that his new sitcom Shedites was due to be screened on the BBC this autumn.

Starring veteran comic Tommy Cannon, 86, the show is about about lonely men and their sheds, with the O’Carroll saying: ‘‘It’s using comedy to touch on men's mental health.’

Published: 16 Oct 2024