this happy breed

'This Happy Breed' shows a different side to Coward's writing. Rather than dealing with the affairs of the upper classes, we instead see the movements of the lower middle-class Gibbons family in the inter-war years. This crucial period of British history is made personal by the lives of Frank and Ethel, and their children, along with five friends. The disintegration of European relations is a backdrop to suburban ennui, socialist rhetoric, and patriotic strike breaking, as alliances fail and revive within a small dining room near Clapham Common. 'This Happy Breed' was first performed in 1942.