Shout out to The Secret of St Kilda, but from the one and only (excellent) episode I’ve heard and the responses from other listeners, I don’t think that show has a safe space and I’m too terrified to listen to it in full. I just wanted to make this joke upfront: the St Kilda I’m discussing is on the opposite side of the world, and the story it features in is just as far in tone.

This St Kilda is the beachside inner-city suburb of Naarm (Melbourne, Australia), which is, as a friend once told me at an end-of-year celebration in 2021, the queerest suburb in Naarm. The gayest suburb, they explained, is Collingwood as it has all the gay bars (I’m sure Troye Sivan would agree), but St Kilda’s the queerest.

Wait… magic‽ Yep! Not incantations and wands, bright lights and floating objects; this is a much subtler power. For one, empathic connections with other people that allow Jason and Kane to ease other people’s burdens: from completely removing hangovers and migraines to soothing panic attacks. For the other, a kind of manipulating probability that increases the odds of something happening. They bring a lot of it down to a ‘law of mundanity’: willing something to happen and then, by coincidence, it occurs. Someone Jason gets frustrated at in the supermarket is carrying around a soft drink bottle that explodes. Kane vents about the price of beds to his Uber driver, who happens to be getting rid of their bed at the moment. Finally, they can imbue both of these things into small objects to create a certain effect to the environment around them. Putting the wish of protection into a knot that gets tied around a door handle to create protective wards around their home, for example.

It’s not a hard-and-fast magic system, with strict defined rules. It takes concentration and energy, though it’s not clear how much, but otherwise there aren’t drawbacks. Queer people, according to creator Erin Kyan, have enough problems to deal with. Jason (who Kyan also voices) faces homophobia from his parents and job interviewers; pretty much everyone faces discrimination at various points. A good majority of the supporting characters are battling homelessness when they’re first introduced: Victor, Helen, Sarah and Mira, Tom and Brandon, Michael and Ricardo. Kane (voiced by Lee Davis-Thalbourne, who produces the show alongside Kyan) and Ricardo (voiced by Justin Jones Li) are the most notable characters to suffer panic attacks, but they aren’t the only ones, and everyone is going through grief and trauma. In addition to the very real struggles of queer people in our day and age, the show also touches upon the effects of real-life events on the Australian queer community: the 2017 same-sex marriage postal plebiscite casts its shadow over the first season and the second season also explores the devastation of the AIDS crisis.

For all the heavy topics that are covered, the show still remains relatively light. Kyan loudly proclaims, before the show even begins, that nobody gets killed. This is a story about healing. This is a love story.

This is a love story TV producers would call boring; love triangles become uncomplicated polyamorous relationships and unrequited crushes are sad, not tragic. And though, yes, there are breakups in this show, there is no will-the-won’t-they between Kane and Jason. They stay together, all throughout. There’s teasing, arguments, drunk messages, embarassment, but nothing that stands a chance of breaking them up. The joy is in hearing them open up with one another, flighty Jason and guarded Kane. They balance each other out, lifting each other up and grounding one another.

JASON:
Did I ever tell you that I love you more than anything else? In the whole word? And also that I think you’re the most generous and kind person I’ve ever met? And also, I know that you love me more than anything else in the world. And that’s why you should tell me what you’re planning for my birthday!

And it’s not just the characters that are grounded: Love and Luck is rooted in Naarm. There’s the inner-city Aussie accents and slang. There’s the jokes that the Best of Luck Bar would not survive in this city if it couldn’t serve a good cup of coffee. There’s plans to eat at Monarch Cakes, nighttimes at St Kilda Beach, agonising over the timesink that is Chadstone Shopping Centre. The show gives shoutouts to real things in Naarm, like the band Lalić, the comedian Lisa-Skye or the queer bookstore Hares and Hyenas. This is Naarm as the locals know it. For me, it’s home.

I lived in St Kilda, and spent my childhood in that corner of south-east Naarm. My kindergarten was just off of Fitzroy Street. I got my stepdad hurt in an inline skating accident at St Kilda Beach when I was six and the day ended with consolation ice cream softees. My stepdad would walk my brother in a pram to Acland Street and back so he would fall asleep when he was a baby. When I was seventeen, I marched in my first Pride March along Fitzroy Street. I was with a contingent of other young people dancing to ‘Youth’ by Troye Sivan. I hung out with a young drag queen (princess?) so hyped they kept on doing the splits on the summer-warmed tarmac. I’ve participated in Midsumma Pride March twice since (though I probably won’t in future until things change).

I was eighteen when I first listened to Love and Luck. Killing class time by scrolling The Once and Future Nerd’s social media led me to this Buzzfeed listicle by Tides creator Ayla Taylor (long before that wonderful podcast came to be) and the single word ‘Melbourne’ immediately caught me. I don’t know if it was during class or after ‒  if any of my former teachers ever read this, it was definitely after ‒ that I hit play, but I recall meeting my friend at a park on the walk home and telling her that this show was good, they should listen as well (this was at least the second time I had done this to them; the previous time I did that in this particular park was as I listened to Episode 50 of The Bright Sessions and, well, I was fangirling and she likes musicals). It was queer, and it was magical, and it was St Kilda! It was fun to get on the 96 tram and imagine I’d just missed Jason getting off, or to sit at my GP’s waiting room and to hope I’d find Kane and Ricardo griping nearby.

I recall, as I approached the end of the first season, getting off the train at Flinders Street Station and listening to Kyan’s announcement for the second season. My interest was piqued when I heard that there would be a launch party, and when I saw that tickets were affordable and the venue was an easy bus ride from home, I decided to go.

I recall that evening fondly. The first person I met was Thalbourne, who spotted me loitering in the carpark and assured me I was in the right place. Seeing how nervous I was, he told me to take a seat at the edge of the room and join small conversations when I felt ready.

I didn’t cry, by-the-by. Not that evening, anyway, even though there were moments where I came close.

At the end of the evening, Kyan asked me what I thought of the five episodes we’d heard, and I think I said I’d had fun. It was hard, then, to summarise everything I thought about the show. As you can tell by the length of this piece, it’s still hard, even almost six years on.

Because even if the Best of Luck Bar isn’t real, Love and Luck has performed a magic trick of its own. The story promises that nobody is killed off, that breakups are rough but healthy, that bad things happen but people heal, and that good things happen, too; a certainty that queer people often don’t have in stories ‒ let alone real life. There is a reason why the Bury Your Gays trope exists, after all. In making that promise, the story is somehow a safe space itself.

Sadly, the show ended after that second season. COVID-19 forced Naarm into extreme lockdowns well into 2021, and even once things reopened, the cast wasn’t comfortable getting together to record. (You can read their statement on the matter here.) The creators are still active in the audio drama sphere, and the voice actors may be heard in other projects, but Love and Luck ends with that round 100 episodes over 2 seasons, and the one special.

If I want to be sad, I think that the story after Episode 101: ‘Quarantine Special’ involves the Best of Luck Bar having to shut its doors for good, either during the lockdown or after, due to the drop in returning customers. But then I remember that the Best of Luck Bar has magic on its side, so they’re probably okay. They’re out there, somewhere, living their magical queer lives in St Kilda and offering a helping hand to those in need. Waiting, in your podcatcher, for you to meet them.

[Dial Tone]
[Pickup]
JASON:
Hi, you’ve reached the Best of Luck Bar, a dry bar and social hub in St Kilda for the LGBTIQA+ community. Our opening hours are 9am to 3am every day except Monday, however, if there is an emergency, you can still come here outside those hours, as we, Jason and Kane, the owners, live upstairs above the bar.
If you feel unsafe for any reason, you can come here. We will look after you. We are a sanctuary for you in this time of bigotry. We’re all in this together.
[Beep]

Listen to the trailer below. You can listen to Love and Luck via the show’s website or your podcatcher of choice.