20 May 1943, John Charter's wartime journal

Christine Corra designed the costumes and they were quite a triumph: they were made out of silk scarves, with silk under slips, old evening dresses and bits of curtain, dyed mosquito nets etc. I spent quite a time (with much protest!) cutting out, from empty meat and jam tins, crescent moons, stars,  diamonds, circles etc. which Y sewed onto the little black jacket of her slave costume.

Christine, I thought, made one mistake in her costume design, and that was not concerned with the actual costume so much as the grouping and arranging of colours. She made no use at all of colour groups which was rather a pity. The 6 officers and the 4 handmaidens of the queen were dressed alike, respectively and so also were the chancellors, but the costumes they wore were made up of 2 or 3 fairly strong contrasting colours. All the others wore costumes of cheerful and bright colours, cut, perhaps, to the same pattern but of every colour under the sun. The net result was that, in the bigger of the Royal scenes, the effect was bizarre rather than regal, especially as the colour black was practically non-existent, where its judicial introduction would have strengthened the other colours a good deal. If Christine had tried grouping people together a little more in similar coloured costumes and getting the contrasts between the groups, the effect as a whole would have been much grander. However, it was really quite well done and I have no doubt it would have added to the difficulties of dressing such a large cast if they had gone in for colour grouping on a large scale!

This ballet was dress rehearsed on Tuesday 16th March, performed on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Monday and then a repeat performance on the following Friday 26th. These numerous performances were necessary partly because the ‘crowd’ dances were performed on the auditorium floor in front of the stage, thus reducing the seating capacity of the hall; partly because many people wanted to see it more than once. Butler, in charge of the electrical arrangements in the hall, had contrived two big flood lights at the sides of the hall made from big tin containers (originally used for milk powder or some such commodity) and each fitted with 4 x 100 watt lamps (borrowed from various rooms, including one from ours). These floods have proved very useful since.

Today is Chère’s birthday and tomorrow it is Mother’s. Many happy return’s of the day, both of you.