IN APRIL 2009, the clan was safely home in Dublin's Olympia Theatre, performing For the Love of Mrs Brown.

Again, the audience clapped until their hands were sore, with critics comparing the on-stage madness to a mix of Monty Python and the Carry On movies, and Brendan was hailed as a "gifted comic".

But, gifted or not, the writer knew he couldn't keep the bank manager happy with the returns from the likes of Dublin and Glasgow.

But, at least he had another new Agnes Brown adventure to offer the world.

While trying to develop his sitcom pilot in Florida, Brendan had also, rather remarkably, come up with the fifth play in the "trilogy", How Now Mrs Brown Cow.

The backbone of the story sees Agnes expecting her priest son Trevor to come home from Boston for Christmas.

The ending is entirely predictable - Trevor makes it home and the family sing in harmony next to the Christmas tree.

Brendan opened the show in Glasgow in October, and filmed his pilot the following week.

He said: "Peter Kay came up to the filming and said he thought it was amazing, a seminal moment in television.

"But I wasn't sure. What I knew was I'd done my very best. My feeling was, 'If it works, fabulous. If not? It just wasn't to be'."

Would the concept, the swearing, the crudeness, the fourth-wall-breaking idea work?

Meantime, the Mrs Brown circus took off again.

But the tour bookings weren't looking good at all.

Brendan and Jenny had to work harder and harder to get bums on seats.

Audiences who'd gone to see a Mrs Brown show three or four times a year were cutting back, clearly feeling the pinch.

Brendan and Jenny had serious talks.

They had brought in several millions in ticket prices since they had formed their company nine years ago, but their outgoings were horrendous - and rising - while ticket sales were ever-decreasing.

For a year or so, they'd had to cut back on costs, paying the actors for their working stints as opp-osed to guar-an-teeing their wages all year round.

But this couldn't continue. The bank account revealed the bottom line: Brendan and Jenny were skint.

Added to which, he and Jenny couldn't count on the sitcom amounting to anything; the odds were stacked against them.

And by the time the troupe arrived in Hull, at the New Theatre, in November 2009, it was about to go off the rails.

The show went well enough, the cast enjoyed themselves on stage, but they were more subdued than they would normally have been.

At the end of the show, Brendan confirmed the cast's worst fears. It was over. He and Jenny couldn't afford to keep the show on the road.

His family, his friends, who were - to all intents and purposes - as close to him as family; the people he'd brought together to form this amazingly successful band of brothers and sisters, had to be disbanded.

The tears flowed. The dream was over.

This was certainly not the usual Steven Spielberg ending Brendan liked to write for Mrs Brown's Boys. And they all went back to their hotel disconsolate.

But then the Hollywood moment did come about - and Brendan could call his family and friends to announce the news.

'We've got the green light for the sitcom series," he said. "We've done it. It's actually going to happen.

"I told you I'd be famous."

The fortune teller had called it right.

Brendan was set to be a star.

WHEN Brendan was a little boy growing up in Finglas, watching television was a delight - but also the cause of constant frustration.

No sooner had he settled down to watch Coronation Street, which he still loves, or American imports such as I Love Lucy or The Fugitive, than the coin meter on the back of the television would run out.

Mammy Maureen O'Carroll was all-too-often so strapped for the two-shilling piece.

She'd hunt around the house, looking for a button that would fit the slot, and pay the price later when the electricity man came to collect.

In the New Year of 2010, Brendan allowed himself a smile when he thought back to those times.

Not only could he afford to power as many TVs as he chose, he was set to become not just a TV star, but a co-producer of his own series.

"To not be able to get from the check-in to the aeroplane without stopping for 40 photographs is really weird," he said.

Twenty years ago, however, Brendan was asked what he'd do if he ever became famous.

He said: "I'd get someone to take a photo of me standing next to my 747 jet while sipping a cocktail, and I'd send it to one of the teachers who said I'd never amount to anything."

l The Real Mrs Brown: The Brendan O'Carroll Story. Hodder&Staughton, £20. Out now.