Magic This article is more than 14 years oldObituaryAli Bongo
This article is more than 14 years oldInventive magician who also served as a consultant to the big names in televisionAli Bongo, who has died aged 79, was a flamboyant performer and creative behind-the-scenes magic inventor. He was a magic consultant to David Nixon and Paul Daniels on their television series and also appeared himself on several children's shows. David Renwick, the creator of the BBC comedy drama Jonathan Creek, based his lead character, a crime-solving master of illusion, on the magician.
Bongo was born William Oliver Wallace in Bangalore, India, the son of an army officer. The precocious boy learned his first magic trick from a newspaper article when he was five. By 1935 his family had moved to England and settled in Sutton Valence, in Kent. At 11 he won a scholarship to Sutton Valence school, where he formed a magic club. Realising that his parents would not be able to afford to send him to university, he left school early to perform children's magic shows before doing his national service. "I could earn three guineas for a kids' show," he recalled. "That was three shillings more than the average wage for a week. I thought that was not bad. My parents couldn't consider the fact that I wanted to be a magician."
At 18 he joined the Royal Army Pay Corps and performed in Naafi shows that he also helped to write. This convinced him to pursue a full-time career in show business. When he left the army, he helped found the Medway Magic Society.
Bongo took his unusual stage name and costume - which resonated with his exotic upbringing - from his role as a ship's cook in a pantomime that he co-wrote. "Ali seemed to be a common oriental name, and Bongo came from the fact that the British used to call India Pongoland, so I wrote a song, 'My name is Ali Bongo, and I come from Pongo tiddly Pongoland'."
He took jobs demonstrating and selling tricks behind the counter at several magic shops in London, including four years as manager of the magic department at Hamleys in Regent Street. He continued to perform and won several contests, which convinced him to give up retail and concentrate on his act, "The Shriek of Araby". Originally his character spoke, but "someone suggested I do it silently so I could work anywhere, and that was the luckiest thing in my whole life," he recalled, since it enabled him to travel the world and perform. His character was based on "the silent comedians of the past, with moves and feelings from Oliver Hardy and some of the others, but the Arabian Nights get-up came from the 1934 film Chu Chin Chow".
In 1970, when Nixon began a new show on Thames TV called David Nixon's Magic Box, Ali wrote to him with some suggestions for illusions and was hired to work on the programme. This led to him becoming, from 1979, chief consultant to Daniels on his BBC magic show, and he remained with the series throughout its 15-year run. He also fronted his own show for the BBC, Ali Bongo's Cartoon Carnival, which ran for nine episodes in 1971.
Bongo's knowledge of magic was encyclopedic. A self-confessed workaholic, he often stayed up all night to deliver a prop for the Daniels show. He wrote three books on magic and was a tireless inventor of tricks, including the classic "Bongo Hat". He was a long-standing member of the Magic Circle and was elected president in 2008, dedicating himself in particular to its Young Magicians Club.
The exuberant, slightly daft wizard he portrayed endeared him to children and adults alike. Off stage, he was always nattily attired in perfectly fitting suits, sometimes deep red in colour, with a contrasting bow tie. He remained full of energy into his 70s, involving himself in new projects for the Magic Circle.
Bongo lived with his mother until she died. He had several liaisons with women who, he said, unfortunately did not appreciate magic as much as he did. That love filled his London flat with books, costumes and props he had built until there was no room for the magician himself. He was obliged to rent a second flat in the same building and that, too, was filled to the brim with magic paraphernalia.
He loved performing and travelled to magic events around the world. He fell ill last month with cardiac arrhythmia which caused him to faint as he was about to take the stage in Paris to perform for an audience of fellow magicians. He suffered a stroke while in hospital and died of pneumonia. He is survived by a niece and nephew.
Matthew Field
Ali Bongo (William Oliver Wallace), magician, born 8 December 1929; died 8 March 2009
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