How Mrs Brown's Boys took over the comedy world

Ben Dowell follows the story of Brendan O'Carroll's comedy hit, from the radio waves of Dublin to the centrepiece of the BBC1 Christmas schedule, as he talks to those who helped make it happen

Working Title hires Mark Freeland

Working Title Television UK has hired former BBC comedy chief Mark Freeland to run its comedy unit.

BBC boss Mark Freeland promoted

Mark Freeland, currently Controller of Comedy Production, has been appointed by Danny Cohen, Director of BBC Television, to the newly created position of Controller of Fiction & Entertainment.

Comedy exec Pete Thornton to rejoin BBC in-house team

Pete Thornton, Commissioning Editor at Comedy Central, is set to rejoin BBC In-house Comedy as a Creative Head this month, Mark Freeland, Head of BBC Comedy announced today.

BBC conference: 'Comedy in rude health'

More than most genres, if not all, comedy varies in its output and audience reaction. It's this range of shows that makes Mark Freeland, head of in-house comedy, 'irritatingly bouncy', as he puts it.

Mark Freeland: BBC comedy shouldn't be afraid to offend

BBC's head of in-house comedy refutes the idea the corporation has lost its nerve since the Andrew Sachs affair.

This is a strange new comedy series. It depicts a middle-aged couple during the half-hour after they get in from work. Dawn French plays Val, a waddling teacher of "food technology" whose level of expertise is not so much Auguste Escoffier as King Alfred. Her devoted, slightly simple botanist husband Roger is played by Alfred Molina - more often seen in Hollywood blockbusters than chamber comedy these days - who manfully wrestles with a succession of trite homilies and telegraphed gags in his role.

Shot vérité style and in real time, drained of colour and canned laughter, the programme attempts to underpin its gentle observational humour with the pathos of childless marriage, but only occasionally succeeds. Too often the dialogue, in its desire to appear simultaneously portentous and amusing, instead falls in the gap between funny and moving.

Written by twin sisters Emma and Beth Kilcoyne, Roger and Val... in some ways exemplifies the great BBC quandary: how do you remind the public that their £145.50 a year is not being entirely wasted on executives, while also making them laugh and all the while continuing to employ Dawn French? Head of Comedy Mark Freeland has conceded that "not everyone will get it". I fear that unless you've sweated out long nights hoping that Marion and Geoff would breed with The Vicar of Dibley, you'll fall into the "not everyone" camp.

Farewell to Last of the Summer Wine

Earlier today, Head of Comedy Mark Freeland attended a celebratory lunch at Broadcasting House held in honour of Last of the Summer Wine.