[2] His first regular television role was in ITV1's short-lived soap opera Night and Day, in which he played Tom Brake.

Other regular roles were Ralph Henshaw in Bedtime in 2002 (alongside Alun Armstrong), Russell in CITV's Girls in Love (2003–05) and Nathan Boothe in four series of ITV1's Where the Heart Is.

He played the lead in BBC One's docudrama Dealing with Disasters (about London Nail Bomber David Copeland).

He has acted in a number of films, including My Brother Tom (2001), Son of Rambow (2007), the short 96 Ways to Say I Love You (2014) and Mad to Be Normal (formerly entitled Metanoia, 2017), a biopic of R. D. Laing, alongside a cast including David Tennant, Elisabeth Moss, Gabriel Byrne, David Bamber and Michael Gambon.

[4] He is related on his father's side to Edward Stone,[5] an eighteenth-century clergyman who discovered the active ingredient in Aspirin, as well as Irene Kathleen Stiles (1901–1964), who wrote romantic fiction under the pen name of Romilly Brent.