The dying hubbub from the auditorium as the house lights dim, the swish of the parting curtains, the expectant hush as the stage spots brighten, the silence of the rapt, the gusts of communal laughter, the crack of applause – this heady cocktail was in Dirk’s blood. His grandfather Forrest Niven, a Glaswegian artist, thespian and all-round character, had seen to that. Forrest took his daughter Margaret, Dirk’s mother, on the road in touring productions and although in 1920 she abandoned her aspirations as an actress when she married Ulric Van den Bogaerde, she never lost the flamboyance, the colour and the sense of the dramatic that might have seen her make a modest success in the profession. In any case, some of the frustration was alleviated by her elder son’s rapid rise to fame; she could, to a degree anyway, lead an actor’s life vicariously.

In childhood, Dirk and his sister Elizabeth staged plays of their own devising, using whatever everyday resources were to hand as sets and props. When the Van den Bogaerdes left London to settle in East Sussex, they became friends with the family of Lionel Cox, who founded and ran the Newick Amateur Dramatic Society in a purpose-built and elaborately equipped hall at the heart of the village.