Brendan O’Carroll threatened to quit Mrs Brown’s Boys over mammy Agnes’ costume

Mrs Brown’s Boys’ Brendan O’Carroll has revealed he was never meant to play Agnes and almost came close to throwing in the towel before he even began the show.

The 63-year-old actor revealed to Lorraine Kelly on her programme on Monday morning that he filled in for the lead role on the radio show as the star was off sick with a kidney infection. 

‘I thought I would do her lines and then when she was better we would dub her lines in,’ Brendan started. ‘So just for authenticity, I did that voice, that Mrs Brown’s voice and when it went to the edit  it was the editor who said, “Who’s that actress playing Mrs Brown?” and I said, “Don’t be ridiculous. That’s me.”

But Brendan was very hesitant to play Mrs Brown on stage for the first time and threatened to quit if he didn’t ‘see’ the character when he was dragged up. 

‘I got a guy who was a great make-up artist, and I said, “make me up as Mrs Brown as you see her, no mirror, and when you’re finished I’ll turn around and look in the mirror and if I don’t see Mrs Brown, then I’m not doing this,”‘ Brendan explained. ‘So I turned around, looked in the mirror and there was my mother looking back at me.’