Treading the boards at Cambridge, it's TV's hottest hunk as you've never seen him: James Norton pictured as he started out an acting career in his student days 

By Laura Lambert Showbusiness Reporter For The Daily Mail

Published: 19:06 EST, 1 March 2016 | Updated: 20:12 EST, 1 March 2016

Ten years before he became a national heart-throb, a fresh-faced James Norton hams it up on the student acting scene.

Photos have emerged of him playing the clown in a show called Circus put on by Cambridge University’s famous Footlights comedy group.

In other pictures, he takes on a more serious part in Another Country, the 1981 play by Julian Mitchell, at the university theatre. Tonight Norton returns to our screens as dashing, crime-fighting clergyman Sidney Chambers in ITV’s Grantchester.

Ten years before he became a national heart-throb, a fresh-faced James Norton hams it up on the student acting scene. He is pictured, above, playing a clown in a Cambridge University show in March 2006

Ten years before he became a national heart-throb, a fresh-faced James Norton hams it up on the student acting scene. He is pictured, above, playing a clown in a Cambridge University show in March 2006

The episode will see him rival Colin Firth’s iconic swimming scene in Pride And Prejudice as he strips off to take a dip in a river

Tonight Norton returns to our screens as dashing, crime-fighting clergyman Sidney Chambers in ITV’s Grantchester

The episode will see him rival Colin Firth’s iconic swimming scene in Pride And Prejudice as he strips off to take a dip in a river. 

But without Mr Darcy’s wet shirt to conceal his muscular torso, others will compare him to a topless Aidan Turner in Poldark.

Earlier this year Norton left viewers swooning when he starred in War And Peace as Prince Andrei Bolkonsky.

He’s also currently appearing as the terrifying psychopath Tommy Lee Royce in Happy Valley. 

In other early pictures, he takes on a more serious part in Another Country, the 1981 play by Julian Mitchell, at the university theatre

In other early pictures, he takes on a more serious part in Another Country, the 1981 play by Julian Mitchell, at the university theatre

Earlier this year Norton left viewers swooning when he starred in War And Peace as Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, pictured with Lily James, who played Natasha Rostova

Earlier this year Norton left viewers swooning when he starred in War And Peace as Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, pictured with Lily James, who played Natasha Rostova

At Cambridge, Norton studied Theology from 2004 to 2007 and acted in almost back-to-back productions.

In February 2006 he followed in the footsteps of Rupert Everett and Daniel Day-Lewis playing Guy Bennett in Another Country, based on one of the Cambridge Spies. The next month he was in student-written Circus.

In 2007 he played Posthumus in Shakespeare’s Cymbeline, directed by Trevor Nunn, before going on to study at RADA.

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