Background
The youngest of 11 children, O'Carroll was born in Finglas, Dublin. His mother, Maureen, was a Labour Party TD. His father, Gerard O'Carroll, was a carpenter.
The youngest of 11 children, O'Carroll was born in Finglas, Dublin. His mother, Maureen, was a Labour Party TD. His father, Gerard O'Carroll, was a carpenter.
He left school at the age of 12 and had a string of occupations, including a waiter and milkman. Stand-up Having become well known as a comedy guest on The Late Late Show, O'Carroll released four stand-up videos, titled How's your Raspberry Ripple, How's your Jolly Roger, How's your Snowballs and How's your Wibbly Wobbly Wonder. Sparrow's Trap O'Carroll wrote the screen play to Sparrow's Trap, a boxing movie.
The film, which had Stephen Rea cast in the lead role, ran into financing difficulties midway through the shoot when the distributor withdrew and it was abandoned. Incurring debts of over €1 million, O'Carroll became bankrupt and the film has never been produced. Hot Milk and Pepper O'Carroll presented a quiz on RTÉ One with long term collaborator Gerry Browne.
Mrs. Brown's Boys In 1992, O'Carroll performed a short radio play titled Mrs. Browne's Boys and shortly afterwards he wrote four books titled The Mammy, The Granny, The Chisellers and The Scrapper. In 1999, a movie named Agnes Browne, starring Anjelica Huston, was released, based on his book "The Mammy".
O'Carroll also co-wrote the screenplay. He then decided to put together his own family theatre company, Mrs. Browne's Boys, and dressed up as a woman to play his part, as the actress he had originally hired failed to turn up.
From 1999 to 2009, he wrote and performed in five plays. Since 2011, the stage shows have been re-toured across the UK. In 2011, his plays were adapted into a television sitcom (with the name "Browne", shortened to "Brown"). So far, from 2011, 38 episodes have aired, across three series, several Christmas special episodes and a one-off live episode due to air in 2016 on RTÉ One and BBC One.
Mrs. Brown's Boys D'Movie was released on 27 June 2014, and was a significant success in the UK, staying at number one in the box office for two consecutive weeks. However, the film had negative reviews. One saying it was not just unfunny but "close to anti-funny".
An animated version of the show is also in development, with a six-part series due to air in the spring of 2016 on RTÉ One and BBC One. The Course It was announced in January 2015 that the BBC wanted O'Carroll to do "other stuff", due to the fact that Mrs Brown's Boys had become so successful. He revealed plans to adapt his first ever written play, The Course into a television sitcom.