Strolling through the buzz of London’s theatreland on Tuesday evening I paused to consider how this must all seem to the young actor I was going to watch a little later, giving what seems sure to be a career-making performance.

He is 22-year-old Tom Bateman, brought up in Jericho, educated at the Cherwell School, still a student at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art and now sharing the stage nightly with David Tennant and Catherine Tate in a new production of William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing.

This is the highest profile stage show of the moment — the hot ticket of the summer — and Tom is not just in it, but very prominently in it. His character Claudio, ardent wooer of Hero, has 11 per cent of the lines, even more than Ms Tate’s Beatrice.

How Tom feels about this remarkable debut I was to find out after the show when we shared a bottle of chardonnay at a bar conveniently opposite the stage door — which was thronged, as it is every night, by eager fans of Dr Who.

Any possibility of his basking in reflected glory? I wondered. Tom admitted there was a little of what he termed — a splendid word — “backsplash”.

Tom learned he had landed the part around Easter time. “It was just crazy. To be sharing the stage with a lot of people I had seen on television, people whose work I admire, was a dream come true. But it was also terrifying.”

He feels that his audition success may have had something to do with the fact that he has twice played Claudio before, in productions in Oxford. In August 2007, The Oxford Times’s Giles Woodforde wrote: “Tom Bateman delivers a well-judged performance as a fresh and eager Claudio, wet behind the ears but also edgily aware that he risks getting out of his depth.” Later the same year, James Benefield pinpointed his “endearing” naivety. For the Wyndham’s production, he tells me (and it’s obvious watching him) he has taken a more worldly-wise approach.

Tom describes with charming enthusiasm (I won’t quote verbatim) the friendship and encouragement he has received from Tennant and the rest of the seasoned crew. He speaks especially warmly of the older group of actors with whom he is sharing a dressing room.

“Being with them has calmed me down; it’s very anchoring. To be playing a big part at a theatre like this made me feel that I had been thrown in at the deep end. My colleagues have helped me to feel that it’s a little more shallow.”

The theatrical profession divides firmly into those who read reviews, and those who don’t (or say they don’t). Tom’s dressing room pals are readers. Thus they will have seen some, or all, of the following comments: “There’s also vivid work from Sarah MacRae [Hero] and Tom Bateman.” Evening Standard.

“Tom Bateman, for example, makes a memorable debut as Claudio.” Spectator blog.

“Claudio (here strikingly played by Tom Bateman).”

The Independent.

“Elliott Levey as a closeted Don John, Tom Bateman and Sarah MacRae as a vibrantly attractive Claudio and Hero and John Ramm as a hamfisted Dogberry all make their mark.” The Guardian.

“Tom Bateman gives a coruscating performance of sexual jealousy and remorse as Claudio,” Daily Telegraph.

Quentin Letts, in the Daily Mail, wrote: “Beefcake Tom Bateman, still at drama school, has a strong professional debut as Claudio. He even survives being dressed up like something from an underpants advert in Attitude magazine. I was shocked, but quite interested, by a scene near the end when Claudio contemplates suicide.”

This is somewhat surprising, I think, as Tom does not step out in underpants but in a pair of fetching blue shorts with white lacing. This is not to deny a certain raunchiness to his role. In an imagined scene on the night before his ‘wedding’ there is a bit of business involving a tart, a bare chest and baby oil.

“That’s the bit I said you should look away from,” Tom told his mother, Sue, who with her eldest son Oliver was also in Tuesday’s audience and joined us later in the bar. Did she look? I’m not sure, but on a first meeting she hardly seemed someone to be easily shocked.

The one piece of press attention that I supposed might seriously have pleased Tom came from Baz Bamigboye, also in the Daily Mail.

He wrote, captioning a picture: “Tom Bateman, who plays Claudio in Josie Rourke’s production of Much Ado About Nothing, now in previews at Wyndham’s Theatre.” The piece went on: “The show has been built around Catherine Tate and David Tennant, who play Beatrice and Benedick, but the production has a very good ensemble. Mr Bateman gives a star-in-the-making performance. He’s got the looks and the talent — and the two don’t often go together.”

Was he pleased by that? Actually rather embarrassed, he admitted, not least after the comments of his review-reading colleagues in the dressing room.

This is a star in the making, I feel, who is not going to have his head turned by success, or the intimations of it.