In 1953 Helpmann returned to the Old Vic, directing a new production of "Murder in the Cathedral" with Robert Donat as Becket. On Coronation night in June 1953 Helpmann returned to Covent Garden as a guest artist to dance Prince Siegfried in "Swan Lake". The following year he again directed and choreographed an opera there, "The Golden Cockerel", with a cast including Mattiwilda Dobbs, Hugues Cuénod and Geraint Evans. The following year brought two contrasting directing engagements: the first was "The Tempest" at the Old Vic, with Michael Hordern as Prospero, Richard Burton as Caliban and Claire Bloom as Miranda. Then followed Noël Coward's musical "After the Ball", based on Oscar Wilde's "Lady Windermere's Fan". Helpmann discovered that the combination of Coward and Wilde was not a success: "Everything that Noël sent up, Wilde was sentimental about, and everything that Wilde sent up Noël was sentimental about. It was two different points of view and it didn't work."