Ed McVey was Prince William in the final season of Netflix's The Crown, giving us William during his college years and the early stages of his relationship with Kate Middleton, played by Meg Bellamy.

But now for something completely different – his first theatre tour and his longest stretch of theatre so far, the first-ever UK tour of the stage adaptation of The Talented Mr Ripley, coming to the Devonshire Park Theatre, Eastbourne from Mon 30 March- Sat 4 April.

“It is just an absolute dream to have a character who is so dense and so detailed,” says Ed, speaking as the tour got underway in Cheltenham: “The feedback has been great. We're still ironing out some things, but we are there, and it just feels wonderful.”

The point is that this is an incredible character he has got to play: “And I'm trying to put from my mind the pantheon of great actors that have played him in in the past. I'm trying to put my own take on him. And the script is amazing but this is very different to any other iteration, not the story, but the way it is told. It is very theatrical and it's told in a way that could only be done in the theatre. It is almost Shakespeare. And I think the way we are doing it we're going to get more of an understanding of who this person really is. The show has never been done on stage before.”

Tom Ripley is a nobody – until he’s offered an unexpected opportunity: travel to Italy and bring home the wealthy and carefree Dickie Greenleaf. But as Tom is drawn into Dickie’s glittering world of privilege, his obsession takes a dark turn. What begins as an innocent invitation spirals into a web of lies, identity theft and murder…

But don't just dismiss him as the villain of the piece, Ed argues: “I think it is the death of an actor if you judge a character. I think you have to fall in love with your character and I've certainly fallen in love with Tom. He's a bit of a lost boy. He is striving for something. He is striving for a better life. He is striving for the greener grass. His methods might not be the methods that most of us would choose but I think you've got to admire him for the lengths that he's prepared to go to get what he wants and what he thinks he deserves.”

As Ed says, if you just dismiss him as a narcissistic psychopath, then you're missing the point of the character and the richness of the character: “If you just think of him as the narcissistic psychopath then that is the easy way out. I want to try to get the audience to root for him and to like him. Obviously he does things that as Ed the human being I would not want to do but as Ed the actor I don't want to judge him and I want to get the audience to understand him.”

Ed is joined by Maisie Smith (Eastenders, BBC) as Marge Sherwood, Bruce Herbelin-Earle (Free Reign, Netflix; The Boys in the Boat, Warner Bros) as Dickie Greenleaf, Christopher Bianchi (Othello, Tobacca Factory; Aesop’s Fables, Bristol Old Vic) as Herbert Greenleaf/Roverini, Cary Crankson (Death of England, National Theatre & Soho Place Theatre; A View From The Bridge, West End) as Freddie Miles/Alvin McCarron, Leda (Antigone, UK Tour) as Cleo/Dottie and Jason Eddy (Othello, Royal Shakespeare Theatre; The Rat Trap, Off-Broadway) as Peter/Fausto.