KEDAR Williams-Stirling could not be happier in his role in Alan Bennett's The History Boys.

He is playing Dakin, "a handsome boy", as Bennett describes the most advanced of an unruly bunch of northern grammar schoolboys seeking Oxbridge places in the 1980s under the tutelage of a maverick English teacher.

"This role or Posner is the part to play," says Kedar of the confident, funny, cruel, sly, clever Dakin, as he heads for the Grand Opera House, York, on Monday. "Dakin has quite a journey with a lot to say in what happens in the story, and he has different aspects to him in his relationships with teachers, fellow pupils and women.

"He's very confident, quite crude, not afraid to say what he thinks and he doesn't say things for no reason. He's very intelligent in his thoughts and the wording of everything he says."

Dakin is 18, Kedar is 20 and fresh out of the Italia Conti Academy of Performing Arts, having begun his theatre studies in Year 6 at the Sylvia Young Theatre School and completed them with a diploma in performing arts. "When I went to the audition at Sylvia Young's I didn't know what I was letting myself in for," the East Londoner recalls, but film, television and stage roles ensued.

"When I started the 'acting thing' I didn't have an inclination of wanting to do this full time; I was into sports first, but once I went to Sylvia Young's and got into the cast for The Lion King at the Lyceum, playing Simba when I was 12-13, that was the indication that I could pursue this – though that was the only musical theatre role I've done. Since then I've done different genres: I've done two feature films [Montana, Shank]; a few plays [such as the National Theatre's Welcome To Thebes]; radio; TV; voiceovers."

Since leaving Italia Conti, Kedar has appeared in African-American playwright LeRoi Jones's short play, Dutchman, a two-hander about race relations, society and sexuality in 1964, at The Crate in Notting Hill and now in Kate Saxon's 2015 touring production of The History Boys.

As chance would have it, the tour reunites him with Steven Roberts, who he knew from his schooldays. "When I was in Year 6, he was in Year 11 and was my head boy; now he's playing Posner," says Kedar.

He had seen the 2006 film of The History Boys, but not the stage play when landing the role of Dakin, but he has grown to favour the stage version over the cinematic interpretation. "It was written as a play and certain aspects are lost in the film," he says, before appraising why Bennett's 2004 play has been voted the nation's favourite in a poll commissioned by the English Touring Theatre in December 2013.

"It's the different stories and the characters that appeal; we can relate to them from our own schooldays. There's the humour as well; we have a very different attitude to America, where they feel rather differently about this play, but the British have this irreverent sense of humour."

Sell A Door Theatre presents The History Boys, Grand Opera House, York, Monday to Saturday, 7.30pm, and Wednesday and Saturday matinees, 2.30pm. Box office: 0844 871 3024 or atgtickets.com/york