Fans anticipating a new season of Mrs Brown’s Boys were dealt a harsh blow this week after star Brendan O’Carroll declared himself too busy to write new episodes. The BBC have announced that the sitcom – one of the organisation’s most popular shows – may not return for another two years.

 The final episode of the third series of Mrs Brown’s Boys will be screened next week and has averaged 7.7 million viewers in its regular Monday evening slot. However, it’s unlikely to return until late 2014 as Bafta-winning writer Brendan, 57, is to take the show on the road for a string of dates in 2013. The cast will head to Birmingham, Manchester, Newcastle, Glasgow, Cardiff and London, for huge shows at the O2 Arena. Upon going on-sale last year, Mrs Brown’s Boys Live Tour had sold in excess of 250,000 tickets in a matter of hours. BBC1 controller Danny Cohen will no doubt be urging Brendan to begin work on a fourth run, though the Irishman has already made it clear he intends to pen a movie spin-off too.

Speaking to The Metro following the show’s National Television Awards success, O’Carroll said of the feature-film, “I haven’t actually written it yet,’ he confessed. ‘But it will be really funny…I’ve written the trailer, I haven’t written any more…But if there’s anyone from Universal or the BBC listening I think you’ll really love it when you get it.”