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 recorded at least seven times, including four performances conducted by Mackerras himself. Gervase Hughes wrote, "Although the orchestration is disfigured by over-reliance on "glissando" harps and succulent counter-subjects for the horns, much of the music comes over well in its new guise, and the combination of a melody from the opening chorus of "Patience" with the second act quintet from "The Gondoliers" is quite brilliant." A black-and-white studio film of "Pineapple Poll", danced by the Royal Ballet, with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Mackerras, was broadcast by BBC television in 1959. It starred Merle Park, David Blair and Stanley