ABSTRACT
The British musical Bless the Bride (1947) may be set in 1870–1871, but historical displacement disguises many of its factors that relate to the recent experiences during World War II of its first audiences. This chapter examines how that subtext is conveyed through the contrasts of stereotypical English and French types alongside the more rounded characterisations of the leading romantic couple: an English rose and a Parisian charmer, significantly cast to match. The deconstruction of a political subtext of Anglo-French cooperation and respect is supported by similar approaches in two adjacent works (1946 and 1949) by the same creative team. As a crucial speech in the final scene of the musical makes clear, Paris is unusually made prominent here not as a setting for the main narrative, but for what it could symbolise to a British audience in the wake of war.
