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Ian Wallace was a warmly regarded example of a rare and versatile talent. A distinguished opera bass-baritone, he also helped popularize the Michael Flanders and Donald Swann revue number The Hippopotamus Song – "mud, mud, glorious mud" – and was a star on the BBC Radio 4 quiz show My Music. Equally comfortable in pantomime as at Glyndebourne, his London stage work included co-starring with Robert Morley in the 1956 musical Fanny at Drury Lane.
Round and good-natured, Wallace possessed a unique gift as a storyteller. He had a keen eye for human frailty and absurdity but was so kind-hearted that his tales often made even the "victims" laugh. One favorite story involved a time on stage when he felt faint and clung to the soprano in front for support; afterward, she thanked him for steadying her when she felt faint. Just as Wallace rarely spoke ill of others, few spoke ill of him. Jeanette Chalmers, his longtime agent, said he succeeded not only due to talent but because he was excellent with people – "very untheatrical ... and very straightforward."
However, he was capable of bluntness. In the 1980s, when BBC accountants proposed cutting several BBC orchestras to save money, Wallace was among the performers who publicly opposed the drastic reductions, while other BBC stars remained silent.
From the start, Wallace was drawn to the lighter, more humorous side of life, although he faced early setbacks despite his privileged background. Born in London to Sir John Wallace, Liberal MP for Dumfermline between the world wars, who hoped his son would become a barrister, Ian and his mother Mary were captivated by the stage. He made his first stage appearance at age five in a school production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, playing Bottom the weaver. During the performance, he suffered coughing fits and was later diagnosed with whooping cough.
Though his father did not encourage his acting ambitions, he tolerated them. Ian attended variety shows at the London Coliseum, watching performers like the Houston Sisters, Layton and Johnstone, and the clown Grock.
After attending Charterhouse school in Godalming, Surrey, he studied law at Cambridge, a path his father believed would lead him to law and politics. However, Ian made more impact in amateur dramatics than in his law studies and graduated with a third-class degree after his tutor reportedly failed to secure him a higher classification.
His career plans were interrupted by World War II, during which he joined the Royal Artillery but was invalided out after a motorcycle accident. Returning to service, he was again invalided out in 1944 due to spinal tuberculosis, spending extensive time in a military hospital. Despite being in a plaster cast, he entertained fellow patients with his own show, High Temperature. "I've been here about 16 months and I got bored, so I asked if I could do this show. We're having a wonderful time," he told visiting journalists at Horton emergency hospital in Epsom, Surrey.
During those difficult two years largely spent bedridden, his thoughts increasingly turned to the theatre. His professional stage debut was at the Little Park Theatre in Glasgow, playing a nobleman in Ashley Duke's The Man With a Load of Mischief, earning a guinea (£1.05) a week. One critic compared him to the esteemed actor Charles Laughton, not just because he weighed 16 stone at the time. Wallace never received formal acting training.
Following a play at the Citizens Theatre and some BBC drama and school broadcasts, he made his London stage debut in 1945 at Sadler's Wells in James Bridie's The Forrigan Reel, produced by actor Alastair Sim. Soon after, Wallace appeared in a singing role in The Glass Slipper at the St James's Theatre. He began to think his future lay in character parts in musicals, believing his voice insufficient for opera.
His friends disagreed and encouraged him to audition, leading to his casting as Schaunard in La Bohème with the New London Opera Company. Princess Elizabeth attended the opening night in 1946. Wallace worked with the company for two years under musical director Alberto Erede, performing alongside a half British, half Italian cast.
In 1948, he joined Glyndebourne, the opera house near Lewes, East Sussex, appearing in comic roles as principal buffo at the Edinburgh Festival and broadcasting many productions for the BBC. His association with Glyndebourne lasted until 1961. He also appeared in revue, sang under Sir Malcolm Sargent in The Mikado and Iolanthe, and performed comic songs by Flanders and Swann. In 1953, he featured in the Royal Command Variety Show at the London Palladium, sang opera in major houses across Europe and beyond, and in 1962 presented his stage "after-dinner entertainment" 4 to the Bar – a four-person cast show after modestly declining a solo performance. It satirized the then-popular Irish playwright Brendan Behan by portraying him singing about "Mountains of corn/Sweeping down to the sea." Later, Wallace created a one-man show, An Evening With Ian Wallace.
My Music (1967–94) always concluded with singing by Wallace and John Amis, accompanied by Steve Race, who devised the questions, alongside comedy writers Denis Norden and Frank Muir. The program was among several radio and television appearances that made Wallace widely popular without diminishing his stature as an opera singer. In the late 1960s, he regularly performed with Scottish Opera in roles such as Leporello in Mozart's Don Giovanni and Pistola in Verdi's Falstaff. In 1987, he appeared both as a classical singer on Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV and as the college Praelector in the Cambridge spoof Porterhouse Blue on Channel 4.
Wallace maintained a handsome home in Highgate, north London, and a Norfolk cottage, fitting for a man who enjoyed sailing, golf, photography, and walking. He was appointed OBE in 1983 and received an honorary Doctor of Music degree from St Andrews University in 1991.
In 1948, he married Patricia Black from Fife, Scotland, and they had two children, Rosemary and John.
