London season. From 1935 he shared the role of Bouncer in Cox and Box with Darrell Fancourt. In 1937 he added the role of the Notary in The Sorcerer. In 1940 he switched from Bouncer to Cox in Cox and Box, and from Usher to Counsel for the Plaintiff in Trial by Jury. He also took on the small roles of Major Murgatroyd in Patience and Second Citizen, and the next year, Second Yeomen in The Yeomen of the Guard. Roles in which he occasionally deputised for Fancourt or Sydney Granville were King Hildebrand in Princess Ida, the Pirate King in The Pirates of Penzance, Earl Mountararat and Private Willis in Iolanthe, Colonel Calverley in Patience, Sir Roderic Murgatroyd in Ruddigore, the title role and Pooh-Bah in The Mikado, Wilfred Shadbolt in The Yeomen of the Guard, and Don Alhambra in The Gondoliers. In 1942, Walker succeeded Granville as principal "heavy" baritone, playing the Sergeant of Police in The Pirates of Penzance, Shadbolt, Don Alhambra, and Pooh-Bah. In succeeding years he added to these the Usher, Private Willis and Boatswain. He filled in for Fancourt from time to time as Mountararat, Colonel Calverley, and the Mikado, and he also occasionally played Grosvenor in Patience. The Gilbert and Sullivan historian Colin Prestige wrote of him, "Richard Walker knew exactly the limit between comedy and buffoonery. ... His Wilfred Shadbolt was sardonic, his Don Alhambra del Bolero urbane, his Pooh-Bah sanctimonious." Walker married a fellow company member, Helen Roberts, on 31 July 1944. Earlier that month, the two found themselves very close to an exploding German rocket near Piccadilly Circus, as they approached a restaurant. They were not seriously hurt, but just before they went on stage that evening as Wilfred and Elsie in The Yeomen of the Guard, Walker proposed marriage. Beginning in 1947, both Walker and Roberts began losing roles to other performers engaged by the company, despite their continuing to garner excellent reviews. Richard Watson took over Walker's former roles of Pooh-Bah and Don Alhambra, and the two now shared the roles of Bouncer and Private Willis. On 31 July 1948, Walker and Roberts left the company. Walker was doing concert work and had returned from a production of The Gondoliers in Limerick, Ireland, in 1949, when D'Oyly Carte asked him to step in as an emergency replacement, initially filling in as Grosvenor in Patience (Prestige wrote that his