History Main / GenteelInterbellumSetting

A (usually) unspecified date somewhere between the end of UsefulNotes/WorldWarI in 1918 and the commencement of UsefulNotes/WorldWarII in 1939. A time of women in evening gowns and gentlemen in dinner jackets mingling at well-to-do cocktail parties, rich tweed-clad country gentlemen and hard-boiled detectives who are veterans of World War I. Lots of action takes place in big country houses and small surrounding villages in the countryside, often involving (depending on the author/genre) either wacky romantic misunderstandings or cold-blooded acts of murder, both of which evolve around complex, labyrinthian schemes. In the more urban areas (usually either London or New York), there's lots of ArtDeco around, swank parties, heavy drinking, and gay repartee. While TheRoaringTwenties and then TheGreatDepression both took place around this period, the rather conservative and patrician milieu of the Genteel Interbellum Setting tends to keep the era's real-world social, cultural, and political upheavals somewhat at arm's length.

* ''Series/AllCreaturesGreatAndSmall1978'' and its [[Series/AllCreaturesGreatAndSmall2020 modern reworking]] both take place in this era, mostly in a small village in 1930s Yorkshire, although in the 2020 series, wealthy widow Mrs. Pumphrey holds a cocktail party at her mansion that allows the women to show off their evening gowns and the men their dinner jackets. James Herriot's actual experiences would have occurred in the midst of World War II, but he intentionally set his stories in a more idealized period; only in the second season of the 2020 adaptation does the war appear on the horizon.

* Deconstructed in ''Series/PeakyBlinders''. The setting is definitely interbellum (starting in 1919, and WordOfGod is that they plan to end it with the outbreak of WorldWarTwo), but there's a lot of emphasis on what the working class are up to, with the protagonists being a family of nouveau-riche gangsters. As the series progresses, it becomes clear that the "genteel" world of high society and politics is far more dangerous and cruel than the world of organized crime - especially when a certain MP by the name of [[HistoricalDomainCharacter Sir Oswald]] [[ThoseWackyNazis Moseley]] shows up.

** ''The Secret Adversary'' (1922), which introduced Literature/TommyAndTuppence not so long after they were both out of work due to the end of UsefulNotes/WorldWarI. ''Partners in Crime'' (1929) is a series of linked short stories about their joint venture in running a detective agency. Unlike [[Literature/HerculePoirot Poirot]] mentioned above, Tommy and Tuppence [[GrowOldWithMe aged roughly in real time]].

An unspecified (usually) date somewhere between the end of UsefulNotes/WorldWarI in 1918 and the commencement of UsefulNotes/WorldWarII in 1939. A time of women in evening gowns and gentlemen in dinner jackets mingling at well-to-do cocktail parties, rich tweed-clad country gentlemen and hard-boiled detectives who are veterans of World War I. Lots of action takes place in big country houses and small surrounding villages in the countryside, often involving (depending on the author/genre) either wacky romantic misunderstandings or cold-blooded acts of murder, both of which evolve around complex, labyrinthian schemes. In the more urban areas (usually either London or New York), there's lots of ArtDeco around, swank parties, heavy drinking, and gay repartee. While TheRoaringTwenties and then TheGreatDepression both took place around this period, the rather conservative and patrician milieu of the Genteel Interbellum Setting tends to keep the era's real-world social, cultural, and political upheavals somewhat at arm's length.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Clue}}''/''Cluedo''

* Creator/GKChesterton's ''Literature/FatherBrown'' stories.

* ''Film/BrightYoungThings'', the film version of Waugh's ''Literature/VileBodies''

* Deconstructed ''Series/PeakyBlinders''. The setting is definitely interbellum (starting in 1919, and WordOfGod is that they plan to end it with the outbreak of WorldWarTwo), but there's a lot of emphasis on what the working class are up to, with the protagonists being a family of nouveau-riche gangsters. As the series progresses, it becomes clear that the "genteel" world of high society and politics is far more dangerous and cruel than the world of organized crime - especially when a certain MP by the name of [[HistoricalDomainCharacter Sir Oswald]] [[ThoseWackyNazis Moseley]] shows up.

* Deconstructed ''Series/PeakyBlinders''. The setting is definitely interbellum (starting in 1919, and WordOfGod is that they plan to end it with the outbreak of WorldWarTwo), but there's a lot of emphasis on what the working class are up to, with the protagonists being a family of nouveau-riche gangsters. As the series progresses, it becomes clear that the "genteel" world of high society and politics is far more dangerous and cruel than the world of organized crime - especially when a certain MP by the name of [[HistoricalDomainCharacter Oswald Moseley]] shows up.

* The American-colonial Philippines had an equivalent in ''ComicStrip/{{Kenkoy}}'', which began in 1928, and whose title character enjoys dressing up to the nines, American-style (despite it likely being hotter in such a tropical setting), and wooing women and getting into silly hijinks along the way.

* Various books by Creator/EvelynWaugh, most notably ''Vile Bodies'' and ''Literature/BridesheadRevisited'', though the latter averts this by telling the story through characters during the war [[RealityEnsues reminiscing about the life they've lost]].

* ''Series/{{Poirot}}''. Like the above, the early seasons also had [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywMg-XOxGYc opening titles]] which were essentially pure distilled Genteel Interbellum Setting, although in being on the "murder mystery" side of the spectrum rather than the "wacky romantic misunderstandings" end they're a bit DarkerAndEdgier.

* ''Theatre/APortraitOfTheArtistAsFilipino'' [[note]]Set in colonial Manila in October 1941, it's technically past the 1939 "deadline" as war has been raging in Europe for nearly two years by this point, but as an American colony, the Philippines hasn't yet been dragged into the Pacific theatre of the war—which begins, of course, with Pearl Harbour, two months later. Plus, the Old World, Spanish-influenced culture and high society of the Walled City Intramuros certainly qualifies the play for this trope.[[/note]]