Ballet dancer David Wall remembered David Wall was one of ballet's nice guys - a cheeky chappie, a mucker-in and a trouper, hugely popular among his colleagues and blessed with a lovely wife (the ballerina Alfreda Thorogood) and a large family. How sad that cancer has robbed him of the long and happy old age he richly deserved. On stage, he was a compelling animal. Possessed of enormous stamina and strength, as well as a vivid stage presence, he lacked the refined classical elegance of his contemporary Anthony Dowell and was always at his best in roles demanding dramatic force rather than speed and delicacy. Red-blooded heterosexuality was always part of his appeal too: in the Sixties, the majority of British male ballet dancers seemed effete, much to the frustration of choreographers: Wall followed in the line of David Blair and Christopher Gable in his ability to project something rougher and tougher. He started his career in the mid Sixties in the Royal Ballet's touring wing (now Birmingham Royal Ballet), where his partnership with Doreen Wells in Ashton's The Two Pigeons and the classics won a huge following outside London. Sensing his potential as a dance actor in the Blair and Gable mould, Ashton transferred Wall to Covent Garden in 1970. He was only 24, but he never lacked confidence or ambition and he immediately made his mark, regularly partnering Lynn Seymour and working with Ashton and Merle Park on the creation of the superb showpiece pas de deux A Walk in the Paradise Garden. He also tactfully supported the ageing, fading Margot Fonteyn through some of her last performances - she later paid heartfelt tribute to his sensitivity and reliability. But it is for the creation in 1978 of the great role of Crown Prince Rudolf in Kenneth Macmillan's Mayerling that he will always be remembered. Wall had already worked in depth with Macmillan - he had had a great hit in 1974 with the half-comic, half-sinister role of Lescaut in his Manon - but it was Anthony Dowell who was originally selected for Rudolf (traces of this can still be sensed in the way that the first solo is shaped), until his injury during rehearsal meant that Wall moved up into pole position. It was the chance of a lifetime, which Wall seized with total commitment, sustained by intense collaborations with Seymour and Park, who played his young lover and his ex-mistress. In some respects, Wall's interpretation of Rudolf has never been surpassed, and it is a great pity that it wasn't fully filmed (although highlights survive in an award-winning documentary of rehearsals directed by Derek Bailey). But the rigours of performing such a taxing role probably shortened his career, and he retired from the stage at the age of 38. Subsequently he was associated with the Royal Academy of Dance and English National Ballet, where his teaching was both sympathetic and stretching. It is no empty cliché to say that he will be much missed.