[2] Although the critics again noted her weak voice,[5] she had better success in this, and was engaged for the part of Joy Chatterton, a flapper in the hit musical farce The Boy when it opened at the Adelphi Theatre in August 1917.

[2] Then in August, she took the starring role of Phyllis Harcourt in The Freedom of the Seas at the Haymarket Theatre, briefly becoming the youngest leading lady in the West End.

[2] On 27 November 1918, she left the theatre after performing and, wearing a daringly diaphanous outfit designed by her friend Reggie de Veulle, attended the Victory Ball at the Royal Albert Hall.

[6] It was one of many such events held to commemorate the end of the war earlier in the month, but being under the patronage of a large number of aristocratic ladies, it was a particularly long and splendid affair, lasting into the small hours.

[9] De Veulle was charged with manslaughter and conspiracy to supply a prohibited drug under Regulation 40b of the Defence of the Realm Act 1914, which had been passed in 1916 and made possession of both cocaine and opium illegal for the first time in Britain.

[9][12] Reports of the trial exposed details of Carleton's private life and those of her friends, particularly de Veulle, who previously had been involved in a homosexual blackmail case and had dressed in women's clothes.