A Little South of Heaven

A Little South of Heaven is Australian live television play which aired in 1961 on ABC. It was based on a radio play by D'Arcy Niland and Ruth Park.

Plot

Set in Sydney. An Italian widow who has moved to Australia plans a marriage for her son Primo to an Italian, Serena, despite his affections for an Australian, Ruby. However he sends Serena the photo of Primo's more handsome cousin Franki.

Cast

Lyndall Barbour as Mama Chiapetta
Owen Weingott as Primo
Henry Gilbert as Father Felix
Delore Whiteman as Ruby
Ben Gabriel as Eddy
Anthony Wickert as Franki
Victoria Anoux as Serena
Alma Butterfield as Mrs Stringer

Radio play

It was based on a radio play that had been performed in Australia and on the BBC in 1960. The BBC production starred Ina De La Haye and Robert Rietty.
The story has some similarities with the stage play They Knew What They Wanted.

Reception

The Sydney Morning Herald TV critic called it "rather stale fare" as the plot and characters were too predictable, adding that thematically the play "a warm-blooded extension of an Immigration Department pamphlet; bur its mainspring was a device as old as comedy and diplomacy... A neat, visually fluent, but also stodgily predictable, 60 minutes of viewing."
Val Marshall of the same paper thought it was almost as good as The Big Day, "a play that has remained pretty much par for the course for Australian TV drama ever since". She felt "in spite of some miscasting and an occasional spot where action bogged down in words... came off remarkably well."