[Snakes and Ladders] adheres to the best tradition of autobiography in managing to distract us, by whatever means, from noting the number of times the pronoun [I] is actually repeated. As though to remind us that when not posturing on camera he really can write, Dirk Bogarde prints a couple of poems in an appendix. Such as assurance was quite unnecessary, given the skill and charm with which he manipulated the materials of A Postillion Struck by Lightning.

The same selective reticence, an adroit mixture of anecdote, character-sketch and self-analysis, makes him appear pleasantly bemused at his own triumph, much of which is due to an intelligence seldom found amid the chewy montelimar and crunchy praline of thespian egos….

His success in these witty and accomplished memoirs is to persuade us that acting is perhaps less important to him than the need to regain the innocence and security...