‘In the end, I went on the show and Gay never mentioned the split. The interview was the usual, funny exchange.’
What would he have said to Gay Byrne?
‘Well, I would have said I was on my own for six months in the apartment trying to sort myself out.
‘The fact that I met Jenny was a happy coincidence, but also a complication I didn’t need. I couldn’t even straighten out the life I had. I would have left Doreen anyway.
‘And, meantime, the kids were blaming Jenny, which added to the tension. The kids had no time for her. Fiona came to the apartment once and I hid Jenny in the car park! So I had to sit down the children and say, “There is no law that says you have to like Jenny. But one thing I demand is good manners. That’s not a lot to ask.” From that moment, they did me proud.
‘But the children had also seen their mother abandoned and this made them think, “Feck you, Dad, for breaking mum’s heart.” And they got very angry – for months, in Fiona’s case. She felt I’d really betrayed her mother by leaving.’
The kids would come to be very close to Jenny, seeing her as a friend and confidante. Which was just as well because, by the beginning of the new millennium, Brendan and Jenny were utterly inseparable. They formed a new production company. There was even talk about whether or not they would have kids together.
‘When I talked to Fiona and Danny about this, they said, “We draw the line at that, Dad.” But I knew their characters enough to know that if a baby came along, they’d welcome it with open arms.’
Brendan says Jenny had no problem with his being a father-of-three.
‘I would have said to whoever is with me, “If you have a problem with this, we have no future. It’d break my heart, but these children are going to be my children when they are fifty.” I would be saying, in the middle of dinner, “I got a call from Fiona, she’s not happy, I gotta go see her.” And I’d go. But Jenny was never going to have a problem with this. Her attitude was, “One of the reasons I was attracted to you is because, after my own father, you’re the finest father I’ve known. And if you change in that way, I wouldn’t like you.”
‘Some women, and men, think, “If you’re giving that level of devotion to your children, you’re taking it from me.” If you feel that, you don’t understand life. Jenny does. And that’s why I love her.’
He believes the relationship will last forever.
‘God, Jaysus, I hope so. But I’m not an expert on any of this. What I do know is I thank God for sending her to me, this woman who does The Times crossword and smokes Consulate. She’s incredible.’
Gay Byrne once asked Brendan if Jenny helped take the place of his mammy.
‘Could be,’ he replied, smiling. Why did Brendan agree? Because Jenny has some similar traits to Maureen O’Carroll. Jenny is a fighter, she’ll tackle anyone and anything she feels will threaten her world. She’s a passionate, well-read and incisive woman. She can read a script and know instinctively what will work. What she also has in common with Maureen is she believes implicitly in Brendan. Almost from the moment she met him (after she’d cast aside the thought that he was a Mafia member), she recognised his talent, his imagination and sense of humour. The pair were on the same wavelength. Every night at teatime, the world stops while they watch the BBC’s Eggheads together, trying to answer as many questions as possible. They like the same things. They love the same celery and apple health drink they take each afternoon. And they love their life together, at home and on the road. Jenny isn’t a mother substitute. But like Brendan’s mammy she’s a big personality in her own right, with a strong voice. Perhaps Brendan even still thinks of Jenny as a gobshite at times. And they do love a good argument on occasion. But there’s no doubt they were born to become the perfect double act.
His comic mammy, Brendan knew, offered the solution to his financial problems. The success of Last Wedding made the follow-up inevitable and he spent the early months of 2000 writing Good Mourning Mrs Brown. The action returns to Larkin Court in Dublin City, which follows the events surrounding the funeral of Grandad. Except he isn’t actually dead.
Along the way we get involved in Dermot’s efforts to go ‘straight’, Father Quinn’s doubting his vocation, the final days of Maria’s pregnancy, the changing of water to wine, the battle for a £50,000 insurance cheque and even a divine resurrection. What more could you ask for?
There are also a few typical Agnes lines: ‘You’ve heard of Dr Dolittle – this is Dr Do Fuckall.’ And where would Mrs Brown be without a malapropism or two? ‘It says, “You should splash cold water on your scrotum.” What if you drive a Volkswagen?’
What Brendan seems to have developed cleverly is Agnes’s fractured personality. While she is able to ape motherly love, there’s a part of her that’s judgemental. She loves her gay son Rory to bits, but still wonders ‘if they’ll find a cure’. She encourages daughter Cathy to find love. But then points out Cathy’s best years are behind her and she’d better not be too fussy. She looks after Grandad, who’s not even a blood relation. But reminds him every single day he’s ‘one step closer to the coffin’. Agnes welcomes Buster Brady into her home as if he were one of her sons. But then reminds the rest of the family to check their handbags and wallets when he’s gone.
‘Buster,’ she says, hugging the baseball-capped rascal, almost teary-eyed.
‘Yes, Mrs Brown?’
‘Buster, you’re the son I never wanted.’
She’s consistently funny. And thought-provoking. When a couple of Mormons come to the door, their unrelenting oversell of the Bible is halted immediately by one Agnes line.
‘If Noah had two of every breed of animal on a small boat, how could two hamsters have caused such chaos in my one house?’
Brendan left his cast behind to travel to the States in the autumn. To Harvard, no less, America’s principal seat of learning. Brendan was asked to go to promote his Mrs Brown books at the Harvard Book Fair as part of a major book tour.
But he wasn’t overly impressed by the offer.
‘Jenny and I fell out briefly over this. My publishers were hugely excited about the offer. They couldn’t believe that Mrs Brown had made it to the book fair because the criteria were pretty stiff.
‘I said, “Yes, okay, let’s do it, but it didn’t strike me as a big deal.” But Jenny kept saying, “This is Harvard, Brendan. You haven’t been to school since you were twelve and now you’re being asked to read your book at Harvard.”
‘But I couldn’t be bothered. “Well, it’s great, Jenny. But it’s just another reading.”
‘And we had this big row. She just didn’t think I took it seriously enough. In fact she didn’t think I took my writing seriously enough.’
Perhaps it’s because it seemed to come easily to him – writing plays in days or just a few weeks, writing a book in a couple of months.
However, the American trip did turn out to be incredibly special.
Just before Brendan, Jenny, Danny and Rory set off, Brendan had received a letter sent via Penguin USA, asking if he would give a reading in a town called Bethlehem in Pennsylvania.
‘We’ve heard Brendan O’Carroll is doing readings in the States. He has simply got to give a reading at the Morovian Hotel,’ it read.
Penguin replied saying thanks, but that Brendan only had 32 dates available. And perhaps on the next trip . . .
But the Bethlehem bookstore people were having none of it. They wrote back saying, ‘Every Halloween we celebrate with all the bookstore workers dressing up as characters from the Mrs Brown books and the windows are done up like Moore Street.’
What? Shop assistants dressed up like Agnes and her fruit-market pals? Someone made up to look like Cathy Brown?
Again, Penguin wrote back to the Bethlehem bookstore and said they were delighted that Brendan had such fantastic fans, but unfortunately he had no dates left to do a reading.
The next letter said, ‘Look, you don’t understand. The Morovian Book Sho
p is the oldest bookstore in the United States. And it is considered an honour to be invited to speak at the bookstore. And this is an honour we are determined to bestow on Mr O’Carroll.’
Finally the big guns rolled out. The fourth letter came from the mayor. It mentioned, with a tug at the heart strings, that many of the local people were from steel families, and they’d struggled in the same way Mrs Brown had. They could readily identify with her . . . so if anything could be done at all?
‘So Penguin came back to me, and said, “Look, you’ve two days off in your schedule. And if you want to we can book one of those days to go to Bethlehem.”’
Well, God loves a trier. Particularly a trier from Bethlehem. How could Brendan refuse that heartbreaking appeal? He did the book tour, including the signing at Harvard University, and declared it, ‘Amazing’.
Brendan was stunned to see hundreds of people turn up and buy his book.
‘If I’m being honest, I think I had an inferiority complex about being there. I had written a few books, but they were only fun books. I was in a world of serious books, and serious writers. I couldn’t believe so many people believed in me as a writer. It was incredible. And the amazing thing is, in the States I am known as a writer. Most people have never seen the stage show or know I’m an actor. To them, I’m Brendan the writer. And I love that. My mother would have been so proud.’
It was 5 August when Brendan flew into Baltimore and made his way to Bethlehem, ‘A gorgeous little city.
‘I flew into Baltimore at five in the morning, then into Bethlehem at seven, went to the hotel, had a couple of hours’ kip because usually it’s signings all day and then a reading at night.
‘But there were no bookstores to sign at, so I had a good rest, and got a phone call from Penguin to tell me I’d be picked up at whatever time.
‘Then the car arrived for Jenny, Danny and Rory and me. And the car had an escort. And there was a carnival going on in the street. And there was a huge banner up. BETHLEHEM WELCOMES BRENDAN O’CARROLL. And there were Irish dancers in the street! I could hardly speak.
‘And so we arrived at the bookstore. But what I didn’t know was that the Morovian Book Shop is in fact an entire street. All the stores, even if they say “Pharmacy” or “Grocer” on the front are in fact a bookstore.
‘So they walked me up through the whole store to a hundred hellos. And by this point I was stunned.
‘We were taken outside into the crowds where dragonfly cookies were being handed around and I can’t tell you how overwhelmed I was. I said to Rory, “What is all this?”
‘And he said, bemused, “I don’t know.” I tried to work it out. Agnes Brown is basically about a woman who brought her kids up in poverty, but she never thought she was poor because everyone else was. They probably identified with her a lot.
‘Then one of the managers of the store said, “Welcome, Mr O’Carroll.” And I said, “Thanks, but this is all incredible.” And she said, “You ain’t seen nothing yet.”’
And he hadn’t. Just at that point, City Mayor Donald Cunningham took to the podium in the street, the microphone was switched on and he made a polite speech. Then he boomed out to the hundreds of people: ‘I declare the fifth of August to be . . . Brendan O’Carroll Day!’
Brendan O’Carroll, the boy who had never made it to secondary school, was now a celebration day. The Lord Mayor of the American town had written to the Mayor of Dublin to ask for permission to honour one of its citizens, which of course was granted.
‘I cried,’ says Brendan. ‘I couldn’t help myself. I broke down. It was one of those moments when I said to myself, “Look at me, Ma, I’m flying.”’
Danny beamed with pride. Jenny was ecstatic. A couple of tears also welled up in Rory’s eyes. It was a magical day for the boy from Finglas. And the remarkable thing was no one in the entire country was aware Brendan was a performer. The honour was all about his writing.
The income from writing didn’t keep up with Brendan’s spending, however. And now that his gigging days with Gerry Browne were over, Brendan had to look for a new source of earnings.
Thankfully, it came in the form of a panto offer. Such was Brendan’s popularity in Glasgow, Pavilion Theatre boss Iain Gordon reckoned the Irishman would be perfect for panto. That’s how he came to appear in Treasure Island as Dame Bird’s Eye, a character not a million miles away from Agnes Brown, but without the swearing.
It was the first time he had ever been in panto and, he says, probably the last.
‘Oh God, it was hard work. It takes up your entire life. Even when I got half an hour to do Christmas shopping, I’d find myself asking store assistants if they had something, and if they said no, I’d say, “Oh yes you do!” It was crazy.
‘The only way to get through it is to have fun – and it was a great crowd.’
He’s accentuating the positive. Brendan was there for the wages. He didn’t want to be performing someone else’s lines for 11 weeks and over 70 performances. But the money was good – so good, in fact, that he was able to think about buying a home in Florida, near Disneyland. It was appropriate Brendan would make his second home near the kids’ fun capital of the world.
Brendan didn’t spend all his time in Glasgow, however. On Sundays he travelled back to Dublin to see eight-year-old Eric, and he’d make the odd TV appearance or attend a civic function, such as unveiling an art exhibition with the Irish Prime Minister. On Tuesday mornings, it was back to Glasgow and wearing a dress.
Brendan was always accompanied by daughter Fiona, who also appeared in the panto as the Principal Girl, and by her fiancé Marty, and son Danny now working behind the scenes.
During the panto run, Brendan became close to a young actor who would become a fixture in the Mrs Brown circus. (The ‘e’ in Browne had since been dropped, perhaps to remove any association with Gerry Browne.)
Former Take the High Road soap star Gary Hollywood had split up with his wife, and met his future wife, Sharon, who was the panto choreographer. His life was in turmoil and Brendan once again took on the role of godfather, talking Gary through the depressing times and dispensing advice. Then, at the end of the panto, Brendan offered Gary a job appearing in the Mrs Brown touring show.
Brendan even insisted Gary bring Sharon on tour as well.
‘Brendan O’Carroll is like no other employer; you don’t just join the cast, you become a member of the extended family,’ says Gary. ‘He and Jenny look after you. And when we go our separate ways for the holiday breaks, everyone keeps in touch. We go to each other’s celebrations, to weddings, to birthdays. And, after shows, we go out and party together. It’s rare when Brendan hasn’t hired a bar with a karaoke machine and we all sing. You should hear Brendan sing Elton’s “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down On Me”, or Danny sing Robbie Williams’s “Angels”. Then the whole group will sing “The Fields of Athenry” and it brings tears to your eyes. Working with Brendan is like being part of an ongoing party because he has created this closeness, this sense of everyone belonging, that’s really unique.’
After the panto run, Brendan flew to Florida with the family, and stayed until St Patrick’s Day in March. Then it was time to return home to stage his second Mrs Brown adventure. And hope the love for Agnes Brown was growing.
Moving On
BRENDAN’S second Agnes Brown play, Good Mourning, was a huge hit in the spring of 2001. It sold out in Dublin’s Gaiety Theatre, playing to more than 85,000 people over three weeks, and did fantastic business in Glasgow, Newcastle, Manchester and Liverpool. In fact, a shoehorn couldn’t have squeezed any more punters into the halls.
Brendan and the cast were flying. But the boss wouldn’t allow anyone to take success for granted. Every performance had to be special.
‘Years ago, with my very first play, I noticed that after the second or third week, the actors had become really complacent. They knew their lines, they knew when they were supposed to speak, but I noticed they had kind of glazed over.
/> ‘To me comedy is like classical music. It has to be done with passion and, if it’s not, the audience will spot it. It’s got to look like you’re up there giving it socks, or the audience will go, “They’re not really enjoying themselves, so we shouldn’t really be laughing.”
‘So on one of the nights, to try to get them out of their glaze, I asked one of them a question that wasn’t in the script.
‘Well, it was like looking at six passport photographs. They just stood there in shock. But it worked. They didn’t relax on stage again. And that’s why I suddenly ad-lib in the middle of a Mrs Brown play. You need to keep everybody on their toes.
‘But as I’ve developed the idea I realise it’s only funny if the audience are in on it as well – because they are paying. So what I try to do is keep the play fresh by introducing little bits every night that nobody has seen before.
‘And the cast just goes with it and enjoys it. We have as much fun on stage as the audience has watching it.’
One of the ‘bits’ he will introduce is a Mrs Brown song. As she makes her way around the living room, or shuffles down the stairs, she’ll often break into a little song. It’s often something so unexpected as a line from ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, or ‘Don’t Cha Wish Your Girlfriend Was Hot Like Me?’ and neither the cast, nor the audience, know it’s coming.
‘Marty (now the company production manager, who also plays Mrs Brown’s son Trevor) is great for coming up with the song ideas. I’ll be standing in the wings and he’ll whisper a line in my ear. I’ll just go on and do it and it gets a great reaction.’
In 2001, however, the Mrs Brown stage production was still developing. Brendan’s son Danny, now 18, became an assistant stage manager, desperate to learn the business. And he was to be followed soon after by his girlfriend, Amanda Woods, who would go on to play Betty in the Mrs Brown stage shows and on television.
Danny and Amanda met in Donegal the night before Brendan and his troupe were due to perform there.
The Real Mrs. Brown: The Authorised Biography of Brendan O'Carroll Page 21