Mrs Brown's Boys creator: 'I thought I was a goner'

NZ Herald

18 Oct, 2017 12:51 AM3 mins to read

Brendan O'Carroll as Agnes Brown from Mrs Brown's Boys. The star revealed what he thought was a heart attack was a vomiting bug.

Mrs Brown's Boys creator Brendan O'Carroll has revealed he was hospitalised amid fears he was suffering a heart attack during filming.

While shooting the Christmas special of the BBC comedy, the 62-year-old, who plays the titular character on the show, was rushed to a Glasgow hospital amid fears he was in the grips of a heart attack following a bug, The Daily Mail reports.

The Mirror report that the Figlas-born comic "though he was a goner" in the midst of the scare before the ambulance informed it was was nothing to do with his heart, and was in fact a 12-hour vomiting bug.

Irish comedian Brendan O'Carroll in Mrs Brown's Boys.

O'Carroll discussed the daunting moment he believed he was suffering a heart attack, during which he asked his wife-of-12 years Jennifer Gibney to dial an ambulance when he was first hit with the symptoms.

He said: "I thought I was having a heart attack. I had this bug and at about 2am I had to wake Jenny up. We were filming the Christmas special up in Glasgow.

"I said to her, 'You should call an ambulance.' We called the ambulance as we wanted to meet them on the street. When Jenny and I were in the lift we were still on 999. They told her to put her hand on my tonsil, to count my heart beat.

"It was all going on. I had the fright of my life and I thought I was a goner. When I got in the ambulance they said, 'Well it is not your heart ' and I vomited it out for 12 hours. I had a very violent bug."

News of his woes come shortly after his long-time co-star Rory Cowan made the shock decision to quit the show but refused to give the reasons why.

The actor, who performed for the last time at London's O2 on Sunday night, told the Irish Daily Mail that he has been unhappy for some time.

He said: "I hadn't been happy working for the Mrs Brown's Boys company for the last 18 months to two years. I feel that 26 years is enough so I decided to go. I told Brendan on June 16 about my decision to leave. That's when I handed in my notice.

"I was supposed to leave at the end of that week, but Brendan said that would be impossible and asked if I'd stay on until the end of the London O2 gigs. So I agreed to that."

Mrs Brown's Boys started off as a stage show before being picked up by the BBC and becoming a TV smash hit.