I HAVE to admit I held out little hope for this when I finally gave in to pressure from several people and deigned to give it a chance.

After all, a programme about a bloke dressed up as a woman, sporting an Irish accent, with a gay son and a dysfunctional family, filmed live with mistakes included doesn’t sound too promising, does it? Bit old school that, I sneered.

I’ll put my hands up, I was wrong, very wrong. This is brilliant.

The jokes are excellent — a little extreme in parts, but that’s welcome in these days of bland TV — the acting’s superb, the accents brilliant and the writing top notch.

The live feel really adds to the quality too, as the actors are good enough to come up with some hilarious spontaneous one-liners.

Main man, er woman, Brendan O’Carroll writes and stars, and the whole shebang is based on the chaotic life of Mrs Brown.

A large part of the rest of the cast, interestingly enough, is made up of O’Carroll family members — a good idea to raise as much money for the household as you possibly can when the economy in Ireland is as bad as it is at present.

The best moment by far is unrepeatable in a family newspaper, but, with the dodgy bits removed, it involved Mrs Brown riding on an inflatable into a pub where she believed a hen party was taking place. It wasn’t, it was a funeral.

Second best is equally untellable, but involved a serious misunderstanding over a sexual term.

O’Carroll’s laugh is infectious, the Irish accent even making the swearing funny, and we all knew son Dermot’s wedding would be no straightforward affair, with other son Rory finally managing to tell his mum he was gay.

It’s traditional in that it relies on the stereotypical big Irish family, with a dose of alcoholism and religion thrown in, but that’s where the obvious ends.

Unfortunately, the series is almost over, but repeats are inevitable and if you haven’t caught it yet, it’s worth investing in the DVD when it becomes available as this really has moved the traditional sitcom along.