BOYS VERSUS GIRLS

Mrs Brown’s Boys and Girls are the two top rated, award winning sit-coms on our screens at the moment, but they couldn’t be more different.

Girls is the latest, sassy, whip smart, now generation, in-reference laden  American import. Created by Lena Dunham who also takes the lead role of Hannah, it focuses on four twenty-something New York women struggling to find their place in today’s pressurised, multi-cultural, relationship minefield society. It has expensive production values, makes the most of its New York location for atmospheric exterior shots and handles nudity in an ironic way. No wonder it’s successful.

Compare and contrast with Mrs Brown’s Boys, an Irish sit-com, the brain child of Brendan O’Carroll who takes the titular role of Mrs Brown in a style that hasn’t been seen since Les Dawson. Shot in a studio before a live audience with scenery that looks like it would be more at home in a village hall, it is crude, vulgar, obvious, old fashioned, downright silly and childish and regularly breaks the fourth wall as Mrs Brown storms off backstage to deliver some ridiculous punchline. And yet, it too, is successful.

Despite the many differences between the two shows, the only difference that matters in my opinion is this:

 Mrs Brown’s Boys is funny, Girls isn’t.

Despite its budget and production values, Girls is a situation comedy that is all situation and no comedy, which rather defeats the object. On the other hand, Mrs Brown presents us with a ludicrously flimsy situation and then says, right, that’s that out of the way, now let’s have a laugh, which is exactly what sit-coms are supposed to do.

Watching Mrs Brown I’m moved to laugh out loud several times, which is a rare occurrence for any program.  I watch Girls with a studious frown, making sure I catch every nuance and reference so as to get the full intellectual impact of the show as I try and decipher the American accents of the fast talking cast. There is one character in the show whose speaking voice is so peculiar I can barely make out one word in ten. Maye she’s the funny one.

The cast of Mrs Brown all look as though they are having  a great time and frequently ‘corpse’ on camera. This sense of fun and enjoyment comes across not only to the studio audience but through the screen to the viewers at home. The cast of Girls however, all look as though they are auditioning for Stanislavski. This too comes across with predictable results.

As both shows will no doubt enter the twilight zone of endless repeats that is satellite TV, I know which one I’ll still be laughing at in ten years’ time.

Do you?