Cirrus@Austlit

Adapted from Ruth Park's novel of the same name, The Harp in the South is a six-part mini-series that follows the lives of an impoverished Irish-Australian family during the late 1940s. The Darcy family have moved from the bush to a housing-commission enclave in inner-city Sydney: a world of sly grog shops, prostitutes, pimps, and boarding houses. The father, Hughie, was a shearer's cook who lost his job through alcoholism. Although he is now able to hold down a job, his pay is often docked because he's recovering from a hangover. The family is held together by Mumma Darcy, a kindly but uneducated woman who still cannot get over the loss of her son, who disappeared as a child many years ago. The Darcys' two remaining children are Dolour (who is still at school) and Rowena (who works in a local factory). In order to make ends meet, the family take in boarders, some of whom are quite strange.