The farewell was less than fond, but Brendan wasn’t really his Mammy and Rory got well paid...

WITH its schoolboy humour and double entendres, Mrs Brown’s Boys’ fitness as family entertainment might be subject to some dispute.

But there is no denying that up until now at least, the show had more the flavour of a tight family enterprise where the bonds of friendship ran deep, than a conventional showbiz production.

With the irrepressible Brendan O’Carroll as its beating heart, his offspring, spouse and in-laws are like satellites circling the star actor, writer and driving force.

Brendan’s wife Jenny plays Agnes Brown’s daughter Cathy, with a complex web of relations portraying the rest of the great matriarch’s family and neighbours.

Against this line-up of real-life in-laws, sons and grandchildren, stalwart cast members seem like extended family and none more so than Rory Cowan – who, up to his shock departure last week from the juggernaut show, had worked with its creator for almost 26 years.

Bawdy

A former marketing manager in EMI Records, Rory started managing Brendan in 1991, booking his bawdy stand-up routine into pubs and clubs, before taking charge of publicity.

Rory’s contacts in the radio game won Mrs Brown her first slot on 2fm before MCD snapped the show up for the Gaiety.

The rest is history as they say, with Mrs Brown eventually voted the best British sitcom of the 21st century.

Rory wouldn’t be human if he didn’t see himself as instrumental to the show’s genesis and a pivotal figure in the Brendan O’Carroll success story.

But from the interviews about his sudden exit, particularly in the Irish Mail on Sunday, where he laid bare his disappointment and hurt, it’s clear he feels short-changed by the man he considered a friend.

His boss’s abrupt, no-questions-asked acceptance of his resignation rankles in particular, as does the swift announcement of his replacement.

‘I said to Brendan in Cardiff that I wanted to hand in my notice and asked how much notice did he need,’ recalled Rory in yesterday’s newspaper about broaching the issue in the middle of the Good Mourning Mrs Brown tour.

‘He said I could leave at the end of the week! Can you believe that? He never asked why I was leaving and I never told him... I find it odd that after 26 years you wouldn’t even ask, ‘Why?’ That sort of sums up the relationship. There was no send-off, no goodbye, nothing.’

To their credit, both men have otherwe wise conducted themselves impeccably over the matter. Brendan has mostly kept his counsel so there has been none of the diva-esque strops or volcanic spats that, particularly since the rise of reality TV, we have come to expect from the world of mass entertainment.

Mrs Brown’s Boys is such a phenomenon that it doesn’t need to chase ratings with public tit-for-tat recriminations, and the parting, however sad and startling for fans of Rory and his camp hairdresser character, has been the very model of a civilised showbiz split.

But for all that, the cool and dispassionate way Brendan O’Carroll dispensed of one of his veteran actors highlights that for all Mrs Browns Boys’ family values, first and foremost it runs like a well-oiled machine .

In a close-knit family troupe, one might expect some tears and lamentation at the loss of a long-standing member.

Blood is thicker than water, after all, and while Rory Cowan may not be related by DNA to Brendan, he has been with him since he was a nobody.

Elaborate

Brendan could have tried to tempt him to stay, thrown a grand farewell party in his honour or done any number of things to show that he would be missed.

After all, in the world of showbiz, where fragile egos and luvvies must be endlessly pandered to, the ritual of the long and elaborate goodbye is set in stone.

Rory, by contrast, was unceremoniously shown the door. He’s far from a luvvie, but he was entitled to expect some formal acknowledgment of his career turning a corner. But Brendan’s priority was to find a replacement, as the show must go on.

Given the extraordinary success and endurance of Agnes Brown – her various incarnations in stage plays, radio plays, books, DVDs and a feature film – perhaps should not be surprised that as with any long-running commercial hit, its bedrock is a ruthless business imperative rather than a touch-feely thespian vibe.

After leaving school at 12, Brendan O’Carroll built a one-man showbiz empire out of nothing other than his drive and raw talent.

He would not have survived in the cutthroat entertainment game, were it not for his business acumen and tough determination.

Indeed, perhaps one of his reasons for employing family and friends is so he can circumvent the normal showbiz pieties and become an impresario on his own terms.

Generous

Keeping it in the family is also a way of making everyone rich in the process. Rory included.

He readily agrees that he got his fair share, perhaps more, from the moneymaking machine that is Mrs Brown’s Boys.

‘One thing I can’t fault Brendan for was he was an incredibly generous employer, he really was,’ says Rory.

‘So much so that I doubt that there was anyone acting out here regularly who was earning as much as we were...

‘You could get a text from him one day that money was being lodged in your account and it was a share in merchandising and you would check your bank balance and there was about €50,000 more in your account. He was incredibly generous like that .

‘But he must have known I was unhappy, because I am sure I was a nightmare to work with the last couple of years. Maybe he knew it was coming.’

Perhaps the irony is that had Brendan been notoriously tight-fisted like some impresarios, Rory would be forced to keep treading the boards as a jobbing actor just to pay the bills.

Aged 57, he had grown exhausted of long tours Down Under and unhappy at how the touring company had evolved in recent years. He claimed that old hands like him were taken for granted and that ambitious newcomers were jockeying to win Brendan’s favour.

Now that he has won his freedom from the shackles of Mrs Brown and with his money made, Rory intends to try his hand at television presenting.

He may have been denied a star-studded leave-taking and some creature comforts while on tour. He may have left on a sour note. But Rory Cowan still has a lot to thank the very businesslike Mrs Agnes Brown for.