A year later, he became the youngest male principal in the history of The Royal Ballet, until Sergei Polunin’s promotion in 2010 at the age of 20.

Among his roles were Crown Prince Rudolf in Kenneth MacMillan's Mayerling, the Young Man in Frederick Ashton's The Two Pigeons, the Rake in a revival of Ninette de Valois's Hogarth-based work The Rake's Progress, Colas in Ashton's La fille mal gardée, and Siegfried in Swan Lake, in which he was the youngest Siegfried ever seen at Covent Garden.

Wall retired from The Royal Ballet in 1984 and was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1985 New Year Honours.

A statue based on David Wall, Jeté, by Enzo Plazzotta, was installed in 1975 on the corner of 46-57 Millbank, Westminster, London.

[1] They first met when Wall was aged ten and both were students at the Royal Ballet School.