Pineapple Poll was the first collaboration between Cranko and Charles Mackerras, then the assistant conductor of the Sadler's Wells Opera. Mackerras felt that the music of Sir Arthur Sullivan, which had just fallen out of copyright, would serve admirably as a ballet score. He had conducted countless performances of Gilbert and Sullivan operettas and from close to a dozen of them neatly stitched together a delightful musical setting for Cranko's rambunctious ballet.
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