John Cranko resident choreographer for Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet's 1950–51 season. For the company's Festival of Britain season in 1951 Cranko choreographed the comic ballet "Pineapple Poll", to the music of Arthur Sullivan (newly out of copyright) arranged by the conductor Charles Mackerras. Another collaboration with Mackerras followed in 1954 with "The Lady and the Fool", to music by Verdi. In January 1954 Sadler's Wells Ballet announced that Cranko was collaborating with Benjamin Britten to create a ballet. Cranko devised a draft scenario for a work he originally called "The Green Serpent", fusing elements drawn from "King Lear", "Beauty and the Beast"
Pineapple Poll Pineapple Poll Pineapple Poll is a Gilbert and Sullivan-inspired comic ballet, created by choreographer John Cranko with arranger Sir Charles Mackerras. "Pineapple Poll" is based on "The Bumboat Woman's Story", one of W. S. Gilbert's Bab Ballads, written in 1870. The Gilbert and Sullivan opera "H.M.S. Pinafore" was also based, in part, on this story. For the ballet, Cranko expanded the story of the Bab Ballad and added a happy ending. All the music is arranged from Sullivan's music. The piece premiered in 1951 at Sadler's Wells Theatre and was given many revivals internationally during the following decades. It remains