According to Moran, in his Guide to Australian TV Series, The Private World of Miss Prim arose from the successful NLT production Here's Dawn, which, he argues,
lay somewhere between extended sketches and a full narrative. After two seasons, NLT decided to star Dawn Lake in a fully narrativised comedy. The unfortunate vehicle concerned a kind of Walter Mitty situation revolving around a shy, mousy secretary who dreams of romance with a handsome, famous writer.
Set in a children's court, the program was low budget and designed for a daytime audience: as such, it was located inside the courts and adjoining rooms, and emphasised, as Moran notes, 'dialogue and discussion' not 'physical movement and action'.
Australian Women's Weekly columnist Nan Musgrove, critices three Australian television series from the ear, including The Private World of Miss Prim. Under the sub-heading 'Is Burlesque Really Necessary?," she writes:
ATN7's new domestic comedy, My Name's McGooley - What's Yours?, a series specially devised for the talents of Gordon Chater, leaves me disappointed. The three main characters, Chater as McGooley, John Meillon as Wally Stiller, and Judi Farr as his wife, Rita, are splendid - real talking, walking Australians - but the stories don't match the characters. McGooley is Australian TV's third attempt at domestic comedy, or life with laughs, as it is known here. The first was Barley Charlie, a travesty of life in a service station on the Hume Highway. The second was The Private World of Miss Prim, the unfortunate comedy which starred Dawn Lake. Dawn as Miss Prim escaped into a world of fan- tasy (in dream sequences) from her real life in a Sydney office. Her office life was such a burlesque of the real thing that it made the whole show ridiculous. Both these lamentable shows were written by visiting Englishmen - Barley Charley by the creators of The Rag Trade, Ronald Chesney and Wolfe, and Miss Prim by Stan Mars. All of them apparently see life in Australia as a burlesque. I thought Ralph Petersen, a native of Adelaide, might do better for the local scene (14 September 1966, p.30.).
