The Little Woman is a 1961 Australian comedy TV play written by Patricia Hooker and broadcast on the ABC. It was one of the rare Australian dramas on TV at the time.^[2]

It starred Sophie Stewart who had also been in the ABC's live play Fly by Night.

In a plush suburb on Sydney's North Shore, Marjorie, a young bride arrives home to find a series of surprises in store for her: her husband Henry, a Sydney businessman, keeps his wives instead of divorcing him, and they live together in a state of bliss; the new bride is his sixth. In the end it is Vera, his first wife, who gets him.

• Sophie Stewart as Vera^[3]
• Wendy Blacklock as Majorie
• Brigid Lenihan as a beatnik

Hooker was working as a shorthand typist in a city office in 1959 when she wrote the story at home in the evenings. She wrote it as a stage play and it was included in a night of one-act plays at the Genesian Theatre. To help it reach a wider audience, Patricia studied a book on TV technique and decided to revise the script as a TV play. The play takes place in real time.^[4][5]

The Sunday Sydney Morning Herald said it was "bright, breezy and well paced from start to finish. And while the theme (Henry keeps six wives)may raise a few "tut tuts" in some quarters it was handled with such racy good humour and wit that only the most straightlaced could quibble".^[6]

The Sydney Morning Herald called it "a merry little farce" in which "the plot skidded and skated a bit" but praised the "splendid" performances of Wendy Blacklock and Sophie Stewart.^[7]

• List of television plays broadcast on Australian Broadcasting Corporation (1960s)

• The Little Woman at AustLit