by Serah Nathan
My inspiration for Lucky Country is entwined with growing up in the North Western suburbs of Melbourne – Taylors Lakes to be precise.
In the early 2000s, Taylors Lakes was not an interesting place to be. It consisted of a few milk bars, poorly maintained playgrounds and the hub of all activity, a new shopping center to loiter in.
I wanted to leave as soon as it was an option.
But I didn’t. And neither did the people around me. My friends, boyfriend (at the time) and his mates just stayed there and avoided bills and separating whites from colours by living with our parents.
The peers I grew up with seemed content with living in Shitsville, so I followed suit and represented my hood, rent-free until I was in my mid-twenties.
I hated it but just like Morgan Freeman in Shawshank Redemption, I was institutionalised. That’s a slightly dramatic comparison but I was resenting everyone in sundry. They served as reminders that I wasn’t in with the cool crowd (that I’m still not in with).
When I did leave the suburban jungle, I realised that my frustrations weren’t exclusive to me, or the north-west. Peeps from every direction of the compass are ‘stay at home’ adults that share similar experiences.
Films like Muriel’s Wedding and The Castle demonstrate that there is humour in the desperate and the mundane. This is why the environment I was raised in was so valuable in creating the Lucky Country ‘world’.
The characters in the show are all heightened versions of people I know. Selphie is a more neurotic, vocal depiction of myself, with better fashion.
The situations that occur in the series are an accumulation of the tales of woe I’ve heard about functioning as a grown up. Disgustingly, I continue to learn that office toilet cubicles are often treated the same way a one year old does a nappy. Check your nearest co-worker, they could be a perp.
I started writing Lucky Country in 2013 after years of watching sanitised characterisations of females and not watching people of ethnicity represented accordingly on screen. A colleague of mine at the time encouraged me to pursue the idea. As the kind of person that thrives off the attention I missed out on as a child, complimentary words were all I needed to start the writing process. The series was originally created for television, but re-written for the web when I got further encouragement from Hayley Beveridge (who plays ‘B’ and produced Lucky Country) to just get it out there before references to King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard get out of date.
Today we have awesome shows like Girls and Broad City, whose popularity proves that viewers embrace funny chicks. Screen Australia’s Gender Matters initiative is the most kick-arse innovation thing since deep-fried Mars Bars. There’s only good things happening at the current and the digital platform is looking like the frontrunner on delivering them.
So here’s my addition, I hope you like it.
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Serah
Lucky Country premieres on January 18 on YouTube. Follow the official Facebook page here.
look forward to watching Hayley.