Ahead of the live episode of Mrs Brown's Boys this weekend, country duo Foster & Allen have released a song in praise of the straight-talking Dublin housewife.
West Clare singer songwriter PJ Murrihy’s musical tribute to Brendan O’Carroll’s hit sitcom so took Mick Foster and Tony Allen’s fancy that they’ve recorded their own version of the song. The chorus of the newly-released ballad fetes Ireland's most famous Moore street seller with lots of reverential rhyme:
Mrs Brown’s Boys are the new kids on the block
With the fun in Irish laughter they make the world rock
The mammy of all Mammys and the Queen of Dublin town
So goodbye to Biddy Mulligan and hurrah for Mrs Brown
Could this little ditty be the new Bunch of Thyme for Foster & Allen, a new UK hit single over 30 years on for the enduring duo?
“Maybe... “ Mick replies cautiously in that unmistakable Mullingar accent. "I’d say not to the extent of Bunch of Thyme. That time it was all down to record sales - whether our audience are into downloading or not is another thing.“
Traditionally, 60% of Foster and Allen’s record sales in the UK were in the now defunct chain store Woolworths.
“Our audience are not inclined to go into Virgin or HMV or whatever. They’d once have been in places like Woolworths walking around and we’d have a big corner of the store dedicated just to us," Mick says.
"And on top of all that, if someone was buying something for their mammy or their granny or their Aunty Mary, they wanted something solid to put into their hand."
The gospel accordion to Foster & Allen
Nevertheless, whether it sells by the truckload or not, their Mrs Brown’s Boys tune will no doubt impact hugely through radio play on fans of Foster & Allen and fans of the bould Mrs Brown herself - there must be a degree of shared audience. “The beauty of it is that Mrs Brown is so popular in Australia and New Zealand and the UK and here,“ says Mick.
Mick and his longtime musical partner Tony Allen are marking 40 years together this year, and the legendary duo and their band have just returned from a six-week tour of Australia, where they played 29 concerts in 29 different cities. They also played New Zealand last year.
They didn’t actually see Mrs Brown’s Boys on Australian or New Zealand TV as they tended to be performing when the series was on Down Under. “But the promoter who had us out and the crew were all talking about Mrs Brown’s Boys - and did we know Brendan O’Carroll and so on.”
She's "the mammy of all mammys and the Queen of Dublin town"
In fact Foster and Allen do know O’Carroll although Mick only enjoyed his company on one memorable occasion. He recalls a day and night of pure indulgence organised by a friend over 30 years ago in the company of the Finglas funnyman and a number of other stars, when everyone had a night free of commitments.
Their excursion sounds like the stuff of fly-on-the-wall TV before the concept truly took off. The musicians and entertainers in question played a game of golf together, went clay pigeon shooting, horse riding and finished with dinner and a table quiz. In any case, Mick remembers the comedian as an amusing chap - naturally - “and a very nice fellow. But we didn’t really know who Brendan O’Carroll was at that stage.”
Mick has seen the TV series back home here and is “a serious fan.” He says that Tony is a devout fan of Mrs Brown. “He’d be more of a TV fan than me, I would be the outdoor type - I still play handball a couple of nights a week, I’d ride horses and all that.”
He describes O’Carroll as a pure genius. “I’ve read his books as well, The Chisellers and all those.” Mick also recalls his grand-aunt and younger family relations whom he used to regularly visit in Dublin for holidays when he was a kid, sixty years ago. The musician says the cast of Mrs Brown are exactly like the Dubliners he encountered as a boy. “Coming in the back door, looking for a cup of sugar or milk or whatever - he hit it spot on.”
Without perhaps some of the risqué or blue humour we have come to associate chez Mrs Brown? “There probably was no blue humour in front of a young lad like me - or there could have been plenty of it and I wasn’t listening!”
Mrs Brown’s Boys Live - the stage version, filmed at BBC studios in Glasgow - can be seen at 9.45pm on RTÉ One and BBC One this Saturday, July 23
