‘Coward pleaded with Dirk not to forsake the theatre for the “piffling business” of cinema’

Among the pivotal moments in Dirk’s working life, that night in the cramped little theatre belongs in the first division. In April 1947, Daubeny transferred the production to the Fortune Theatre, where Noël Coward went to a dress rehearsal and was so struck that he sent an encomium to Daubeny for printing on posters all over London. In a personal telegram to Dirk he said: ‘I hope your brilliant performance has the true success it so richly deserves.’ In critical terms it did, confirming Dirk as an exciting new talent; but, with Oklahoma! opening across the road at Drury Lane, the West End run of Power Without Glory was short. It was Coward’s turn to succour the cast, offering them all a part in his new work, Peace in Our Time. Dirk, however, was unavailable. Two other visitors to the New Lindsey had reported back to the producer Sydney Box at Gainsborough film studios, who offered a screen test to ‘the one with the charisma.’ Coward pleaded with Dirk not to forsake the theatre for the ‘piffling business’ of the cinema, but it was already too late. Dirk was on a retainer with an arm of the J. Arthur Rank Organisation; a seven-year contract was imminent; and on 6 September 1947 he would start shooting Esther Waters, with his name ‘above the title’, as it would be for the rest of his career. He was, in effect, lost to the theatre.