This Happy Breed
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This Happy Breed is a stage play written by Noel Coward, first staged in 1939 as part of a double bill with the same author's Present Laughter. In 1941, the two plays became part of a triple bill, having been joined by Coward's new play Blithe Spirit. The title is a well-known phrase from Shakespeare's Richard II, Act ii, Sc. 1, and refers to the English people.
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[edit] Plot
The action of the play is centred on the fortunes of the lower middle class Gibbons family in the suburbs of south London between the demobilisation after the First World War in 1919 and the outbreak of World War II in September 1939; it is one of very few Coward plays to deal entirely with domestic events outside an upper class or upper middle class setting. A number of scenes are nonetheless reminiscent of previous Coward works, such as the Bridges scenes in Cavalcade (1931) or the short play Fumed Oak from Tonight at 8:30 (1936).
The play very subtly hints at 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 also hints at 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 30s (such as the General Strike of 1926 and the abdication of Edward VIII), as well as showing the advances in technology - the arrival of primitive crystal radio sets, home gas lights being replaced by electric lights, the arrival of telephones and mass broadcast radio.
[edit] Film Version
| This Happy Breed | |
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| Directed by | David Lean |
| Produced by | Noel Coward Ronald Neame |
| Written by | Noel Coward Anthony Havelock-Allan David Lean Ronald Neame |
| Starring | Robert Newton Celia Johnson Kay Walsh John Mills Stanley Holloway |
| Distributed by | Eagle-Lion (UK) Universal Pictures (US) |
| Release date(s) | June 1, 1944 |
| Running time | 115 min |
| Country |  United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| IMDb profile | |
The play was the subject of a highly successful feature-film adaptation in 1944. Directed by David Lean as his first major film as sole director, it was the most successful cinema film of 1944, and was shot in colour. The cast included Robert Newton, Celia Johnson, Stanley Holloway, John Mills, Kay Walsh, and Alison Leggatt. The film included narration by Sir Laurence Olivier.
The film version of This Happy Breed was an influence on Mike Leigh's Life is Sweet (1990), another intimate and sympathetic study of a south London family, in which the This Happy Breed line "Capitalist!" is re-used by the Nicola character and delivered in exactly the same way as in This Happy Breed.
[edit] References
[edit] Notes
[edit] Bibliography
- The Great British Films, pp 72-74, Jerry Vermilye, 1978, Citadel Press, ISBN 080650661X
- Andrew Higson. "Re-constructing the nation: This Happy Breed, 1944", Film Criticism, Vol.XVI, No's.1-2, 1991-92, pp.95-110.
- David Ravit. "'Everything in the Garden is Lovely': Male Friendship, the Great War and the British Far Right in Noel Coward's This Happy Breed". (2006, forthcoming).
[edit] External links
- This Happy Breed at the Internet Movie Database
- The British Film Institute's web-site for This Happy Breed.
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