Mrs Brown’s Boys star Brendan O’Carroll has hit back at critics of his hit sitcom.

The popular BBC One show is a ratings hit but critics have called it “lazy” and “crass”.

O’Carroll, 64, told detractors to “change” the channel.

“The evidence of four National Television Awards means people are not just liking it — they’re actually prepared to stand up and shout it,” O’Carroll who stars as foul-mouthed matriarch Agnes Brown told The Sun.

Brendan O’Carroll and wife Jennifer Gibney
Brendan O’Carroll and wife Jennifer Gibney (Ian West/PA)

“Radio Times named us ‘Sitcom of the Century’. We can only hope nothing good happens in the next eight decades to upset that.”

O’Carroll’s wife Jennifer Gibney, 55, who plays Agnes’s on-screen daughter Cathy, said: “I don’t understand how anybody could get that annoyed.

“There’s some telly I don’t like but I’d never be full of vitriol.”

She said she treated O’Carroll in character while playing Mrs Brown’s daughter, telling the newspaper: “I can’t even give him a kiss when he’s like that. It’s too weird.”

The Mrs Brown’s Boys Christmas Special airs on BBC1 at 10.30pm on Christmas Day.