The phrase "serious setting" is correct and can be used in written English.
It refers to a situation or environment that is formal, important, or grave in nature. Example: The court proceedings took place in a serious setting, with the judge, jury, and lawyers all dressed in formal attire.
And although McEnroe dishes dirt here and there, he mostly tries to be serious, setting out to understand his own behavior and the strange arc of his career.
Last year, China publicly admitted in a report that its corruption problem was "still very serious", setting out new measures to tackle it.
"It looks like such a serious setting for such funny people," Mrs. Zagat said, flattering her guests.
This can help you get comfortable having these conversations so that when the time comes to share your wins in a more serious setting — e.g., a job interview — you know exactly how to talk about them.
There was the normal pregame routine by the preparation junkie, Jeff Van Gundy, last night, but the distracted players around him had turned the normally serious setting of the Knicks' locker room into the chatty atmosphere of a smokers' lounge at the office.
But often metaphors, satire and irony can be very powerful in a serious setting.
Serious "set up comic situations that appeal to the vast and inexhaustible fascination the Australians have about their own isolation and gawky charm," wrote famed film critic Roger Ebert.
But even as the White House and the CIA engaged in this dispute with the Senate, a separate, and potentially more serious, set of revelations was at stake.
"We played a serious set," Goodman said.
"It was a very serious set," Ms. Portman said, "not a funny, silly set at all".
But there are a much more serious set of charges, too.
