The Mrs. Brown’s Boys actor opens up about why he popped the question, what makes their relationship work on and off screen, and why life has been a dream for him so far ahead of his 70th birthday

Brendan O’Carroll and his wife Jenny Gibney both said they would never get married again before the Mrs. Brown’s Boys creator popped the question in bed one night.

The TV stars will celebrate 20 years of marriage next year and, for them, the secret to their marriage and their working relationship is being to get over arguments and not holding onto them.

He also reflected on turning 70 next year and how life has been a privilege for him so far.

Brendan told RSVP Magazine: “We’re not The Waltons, that’s for sure, but that never comes on stage. I work alongside Jenny, my sister, my son and daughter, Jenny’s sister, and my other son directs the live show.

“Even if Jenny and I have a fight, which we don’t anymore because we’re too old, we look at each other and say, ‘You’re going nowhere, I’m going nowhere, what are we doing?’

“The show has been very helpful in that if there’s something going on between me and Jenny, me and the kids or Jenny and the kids, you go on stage and you don’t bring it with you.

“You get to be different characters. Then you come off stage that night and say, ‘What are we doing? What are we arguing about?’ It has helped to heal a lot.”

Brendan and Jenny are married and they act side by side on Mrs. Brown’s Boys. so their marriage and their relationship on screen are just one circle. They go hand-in-hand.

Brendan explained: “The good thing about us is that we didn’t plan anything. We didn’t plan any of it. My mother used to have a great saying, ‘It’s like disco music, don’t analyse it, just go with it’.

“That’s what we’ve been doing, we’ve just been dancing. When we met and started dating, we both said we’d never get married again.

“I was in the middle of writing a show and I got to bed at 5am. I looked over and thought that I wouldn’t like her to not be there anymore.

“I knew there was a way of making her legally obliged to be there, so I proposed to her. She said yes and here we are 20 years later. The last 20 years have been great.”

Brendan turs 70 next year and his life so far has been a privilege.

He said: Someone said to me that I must be living my dreams, I’m so far past living my dreams I can’t remember what they were.

“I had no idea life was going to end up like this. This is a lesson for everybody to take on board. I’m on ‘Plan K’, not ‘Plan A’. Hang on in there, things will happen for you.

“The trophy goes to the one who stays the longest.”

The Christmas and New Year’s specials of Mrs. Brown’s Boys are back this month.

He teased: “I only finished writing them at the beginning of October. Cathy decides to feed the world on Christmas Day.

“She is distraught about the number of homeless people who aren’t going to have a Christmas this year, so she tries to organise some way of feeding them. In the meantime, Agnes says there’s no need for people to be homeless, all they need to do is go and get a flat.

“She doesn’t get how bad the homelessness crisis is. Winnie convinces her to go on a weekend away to take a break, but she doesn’t want to go because it’s too close to Christmas.

“We end up with a lovely piece of music at the end. Normally, we end with a sing-song but this year it ends with a track called Under Grafton Street Lights.

“Then Mrs. Brown gets a bit of a shock at New Year’s. She decides to let out Rory’s bedroom as a B&B and she ends up with a very peculiar stranger in the house. It leads to all kinds of mayhem.”

Mrs. Brown’s Boys is a comedy, but Brendan is injecting some real life and serious issues there, which is important to him.

He said: “I think comedy needs to touch the edge of reality, but the whole idea of comedy is to take people away from reality.

“Our job is to bring people into a dark theatre for two hours and make them laugh.

“We need to get them to forget about the outside world and whatever they’re worried about. We want them to have a laugh, and I think we do our job well.”

Mrs. Brown’s Boys D’Live Show plays Gleneagle INEC Arena, Killarney 5-8 December and Dublin’s 3Arena 20-22 December 2024

Tune into Mrs. Brown’s Boys on Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve on RTÉ One and RTÉ Player