Masefield, Ricketts, and The Coming of Christ        2 3

etts's costumes of blazing gold, with their pointed ornamentation
filling the air with light and something almost holy. There was
no possibility of an audience's relaxation—both houses on this
December evening sat completely spellbound at iVlasefield's verse,

\ CIlRI.MMVs I'l M

THE CO.VING OF CHRIST
 

THE CHURCH  01- ST JOHN TMl  BAmST
WITTIRSHAM   KtNT
 

THIS   PIKXiRAMMt   ADMHS   Tlit   B
TO THE riRST I'KRl ORMANCL ,
5.0 P.M. OINLY

Th<? ,li.or, ojn-n li.r llic iir^l pcrlurmnncc at 4.4^ p.n
Programme holitcr, art- .^i]vi,ctl ihal (heir p)acL', c,
alter 4.55 p.m.
There tan be no a,lmi„i.,n alter tlie perittrmante ha
 

Cover of the prognini for the 1953 perfornuince.

at Gustav Flolst's nuisic, and especially at Charles Ricketts's cos¬
tumes." (Jefferson's draft of the letter, it was not published, is in
the Columbia collection.) Masefield, Poet Laureate from 1930,
sent a letter that was reproduced in the program in facsimile: "In
thanking all these unseen Helpers, let me say to them what Sir
Francis Drake said to the men of his Fleet:—'God send such an¬
other Company, when there be need.' All happy fortune to you
all. John Masefield."

The collection includes also, as gifts from Alan Jefferson to the
present author in 1972, a plan of the acting site drawn by Irving,