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 Holden. A DVD of this film was released in 2011 (also including "The Lady and the Fool"). A review in "Musicweb International" commented, "As a score, ["Pineapple Poll"] quite simply sparkles like freshly popped champagne. ... In fact, this is a comic masterpiece. Any viewer will be impressed with the vivacious dancing and the 'built in' humour which pervades the work ... would that it had been in colour! The costumes look as if they would have been absolutely magnificent. ... [T]he studio-based performance means that there is a distinct lack of the atmosphere that an audience would have provided."