I have been a tremendous snob about the Irish comedy programme shown on BBC television, Mrs Brown’s Boys, which has been voted the best British sitcom of the 21st century. Ghastly! So coarse and corny! My sense of comedy, I like to emphasise, is directed towards the more sophisticated end of the spectrum – give me Woody Allen, with his quips which draw on Dostoyevsky and the Old Testament (“The lion may lie down with the lamb, but that doesn’t mean the lamb will have a good night’s sleep!”).

But I happened upon the new series of Mrs Brown last Saturday night, and after a tense and anxious week, I confess that it made me laugh. Yes, it’s vulgar and the jokes are as old as the hills and as simple as pie, but there is such a patina of cordial good humour, the audience is so hugely cheerful and involved, and Brendan O’Carroll, the eponymous Mrs Brown, has that genius element of comic performance: timing and the deadpan reaction.