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    Nostalgia Central
    Home»Television»Drama
    Drama TV Shows - 1980s 3 Mins Read

    Harp in the South, The

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    1 9 8 7 (Australia)
    3 x 120 minute episodes

    This Australian miniseries was set in 1948 in Surry Hills – a poor inner-city suburb of Sydney filled with crowded tenement houses, razor gangs, brothels and illegal drinking spots. It centred on the struggles of the Irish Catholic Darcy family of 12½ Plymouth Street: good honest people with many problems, little money, but a lot of hope.

    Father Hughie (Martyn Sanderson) was a kind, nondescript man who drank too much; Mumma (Anne Phelan) was strong, very religious, uneducated but romantic enough to give her children strange and exotic names; Thady – short for Thadeus – who disappeared from the street when he was six and was never heard of again; Roie (Anna Hruby) – short for Rowena – 19, gentle and vulnerable; and Dolour (Kaarin Fairfax), 13, lively and ambitious, and the only one who had any hope of escaping the poverty of “the Hills”.

    The Darcy’s also had boarders – Miss Sheily (Melissa Jaffer), an embittered woman living with the shame of an illegitimate, mentally handicapped son, Johnny (Ken Radley) and Pat Diamond (Syd Conabere), Irish but an Orangeman who drank with Hugh but deplored his Pope-ish beliefs.

    There was also Grandma (Gwen Plumb), a feisty troll of a woman who puffed a pipe and loved a drop of brandy.

    The series cost $4 million to make and was sold to several overseas countries. A sequel, Poor Man’s Orange, was set three years later and featured nearly all the same cast (the two series’ were filmed simultaneously).

    Mumma Darcy
    Anne Phelan
    Hughie Darcy
    Martyn Sanderson
    Roie (Rowena) Darcy
    Anna Hruby
    Dolour Darcy
    Kaarin Fairfax
    Grandma Kilker
    Gwen Plumb
    Pat Diamond
    Syd Conabere
    Miss Sheily
    Melissa Jaffer
    Johnny Sheily
    Ken Radley
    Charlie Rothe
    Shane Connor
    Tommy Mendel
    Brandon Burke
    Mrs Campion
    Lois Ramsey
    Lick Jimmy
    Cecil Parkee
    Delie Stock
    Carole Skinner
    Father Cooley
    Charles ‘Bud’ Tingwell
    Sister Theophilus
    Kirrily Nolan
    Sister Beatrix
    Dinah Shearing
    Mr Gunnarson
    Arthur Sherman
    Francie
    Susan Leith
    Gloria
    Valerie Bader
    Addie
    Emily Crook
    Mrs Siciliano
    Franca Rubiu
    Mr Siciliano
    George Rubiu
    Mrs Drummy
    Pat Thomson
    Mr Drummy
    Robert Baxter
    Grace Drummy
    Fiona Stewart
    Harry Drummy
    Connor Fitzpatrick
    Tonetta Siciliano
    Angela Gauci
    Rosina Siciliano
    Carmela Care
    Chocolate Molly
    Raina McKeon
    Birdie Wren
    Simon Gratton
    Phyllis
    Louise Cullen
    Flo
    Madeleine Blackwell
    Ted
    Clive Marshall
    Bernie
    Alan Nurthen
    Brett
    Grant Wilson
    Jim
    John Clayton
    Else
    Lynne Porteous
    Terry Lawrence
    Max Rowley
    Stella
    Suzette Williams
    Father Hyde
    Brian McNevin
    Sister Rose
    May Pusey

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