This Happy Breed

This Happy Breed is a play by Noël Coward. It was written in 1939 but, because of the outbreak of World War II, it was not staged until 1942, when it was performed on alternating nights with another Coward play, Present Laughter. The two plays later alternated with Coward's Blithe Spirit. The title, a reference to the English people, is a phrase from John of Gaunt's monologue in Act II, Scene 1 of Shakespeare's Richard II.

The story of the play concerns the lower middle-class Gibbons family between the end of World War I and the outbreak of World War II. It anticipates the non-violent ways in which social justice issues might be incorporated into post-war national reconstruction, examines the personal trauma caused by the sudden death of sons and daughters and anticipates the forthcoming return of English men from the war. It is also an intimate portrait of the economy and politics of Great Britain in the 1920s and 1930s (such as the General Strike of 1926), as well as showing the advances in technology – the arrival of primitive crystal radio sets and telephones, home gas lights being replaced by electricity and mass broadcast radio.

This Happy Breed is one of a very few Coward plays to deal entirely with domestic events outside an upper class or upper middle class setting. A number of scenes are reminiscent of previous Coward works, such as Cavalcade (1931) or the short play Fumed Oak from Tonight at 8.30 (1936).

Coward completed the playscript for This Happy Breed (as well as that for Present Laughter) in 1939, in the months before World War II. The producer Binkie Beaumont originally wanted to stage Present Laughter on its own, but Coward insisted that, given the political situation at the time, it should be played alternately with the more sombre This Happy Breed. The original script called for the abdication speech of King Edward VIII to be heard on the radio by the Gibbons family in Act 3 scene 1, but the Lord Chamberlain (Britain's official play censor until 1968) objected to its inclusion, citing the embarrassment it would cause any member of the royal family who happened to see the play. The final dress rehearsal was held on 31 August 1939. The following day Germany invaded Poland; Britain declared war on Germany on 3 September, and the production was immediately abandoned.

Coward departed for Paris to meet Jean Giraudoux, who wanted the playwright to set up a Bureau of Propaganda and serve as a liaison with the Commissariat d'Information. Coward engaged in war work in intelligence and propaganda in Europe and America for the next two years. Winston Churchill advised Coward that he could do more for the war effort by entertaining the troops and the home front than by attempts at intelligence work: "Go and sing to them when the guns are firing – that's your job!" Though disappointed, Coward followed this advice. He toured, acted and sang indefatigably in Europe, Africa, Asia and America. This Happy Breed and Present Laughter were finally staged in September 1942 in Blackpool on Coward's wartime tour of Britain after he returned to acting. The sets and costumes were designed by Gladys Calthrop.

Coward later said, "I have always had a reputation for high-life, earned no doubt in the twenties with such plays as The Vortex. But, as you see, I was a suburban boy, born and bred in the suburbs of London, which I've always loved and always will." This Happy Breed, like his short play Fumed Oak, is one of his rare stage depictions of suburban life.

The Gibbons family has just moved into 17 Sycamore Road in Clapham in South London. Ethel expresses her relief that her husband, Frank, has survived army service in World War I and her pleasure at moving into their new home. Their new next-door neighbour, Bob Mitchell, introduces himself. He turns out to be an old army colleague of Frank's, and the two reminisce.

After Christmas dinner the grown-ups (Frank and Ethel, Ethel's mother, Mrs Flint, and Frank's sister, Sylvia) have retired to another room to leave the young people (Frank and Ethel's children: Vi, "a pleasant nondescript-looking girl of twenty"; Queenie, "a year younger... prettier and a trifle flashy"; and Reg, aged eighteen, "a nice-looking intelligent boy", Reg's friend Sam and Queenie's friend Phyllis) alone. Sam indulges in a spot of socialist preaching against capitalism and injustice. The young women fail to accord him the respect he thinks he deserves, and he and Reg leave. Bob Mitchell's son Billy visits the house. He is left alone with Queenie, and there is a short love scene between them. Queenie baffles him by saying that she so hates suburban life that she would not make him a good wife and rushes out. Frank enters and encourages Billy. After Billy leaves, Ethel and Frank chat together, partly to avoid Sylvia's singing in the room next door and partly for the pleasure of each other's company.