Waterhouse was born in Hertford, but brought up in Haywards Heath, Sussex. The son of a solicitor, he was educated at St. Wilfrid's Primary School, West Sussex and Shoreham Grammar School. Waterhouse was a great fan of Doctor Who in his younger days, claiming that he was "obsessed" with the show.
Doctor Who
Adric was a companion of Tom Baker and Peter Davison's Doctors from 1980 to 1982. Waterhouse was the youngest actor to play a companion and Doctor Who was only his second professional acting role. He played the schoolboy Briarley in the BBC2 adaptation of To Serve Them All My Days with John Duttine, and it was only shortly before he filmed his appearance on the miniseries that he found out he had secured the role of Adric. Waterhouse took part in audio commentaries for the DVD releases of Earthshock, The Visitation, The Keeper of Traken, Four to Doomsday, Black Orchid, Full Circle, State of Decay and Kinda. Waterhouse talks about his complete tenure on the show in the featurette The Boy With the Golden Star dedicated to Adric on the Warriors' Gate DVD. On 31 July 2013, Big Finish Productions announced via their Facebook page that Waterhouse would be returning to play the role of Adric in a series of Fifth Doctor audio plays, beginning in 2014 with the Fifth Doctor Box Set followed by, so far, two trilogies of stories and the adaptation of Fifth Doctor and Seventh Doctor crossover novel Cold Fusion. He has also performed two Short TripsThe Ingenious Gentleman Adric of Alzarius and the award-winning A Full Life, and for the BBC he read the audiobooks of the Target Books of Full Circle, Four to Doomsday and The Visitation as well as some Doctor Who Annualshort stories. In 2016 Waterhouse visited the locations for Black Orchid to record his Myth Makers interview DVD.
Other acting work
Waterhouse guested on a number of shows after it was announced that he would be playing Adric. This included Saturday Night at the Mill and Top of the Pops. He also guested on Peter Davison's This Is Your Life and Children in Need with a range of Doctor Who actors. Waterhouse's only film appearance was in the 1986 sci-fi thriller, The Killing Edge. Waterhouse, in a minor role, played a knife man. In 1996 he made the science fiction pilot drama Ghostlands for MJTV Productions, and played the character Tom, alongside actors Jacqueline Pearce and Sylvester McCoy. Coincidentally, McCoy played the Seventh Doctor, although Waterhouse had left the show several years before. Waterhouse has appeared in a wide range of theatre productions in the UK, and has appeared in the Shakespeare productions A Midsummer Night's Dream, Twelfth Night, Macbeth and Hamlet. He also appeared in theatre productions of I Am David, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Brighton Beach Memoirs, Peter Pan and Torch Song Trilogy. Waterhouse also wrote and appeared in his own one-man show Adventures of Huckleberry Finn which was directed by actor Murray Melvin. He also appeared as John Cunningham alongside David Selby in the Dark Shadows audio story The Creeping Fog. In February 2011, it was announced that he would be starring in the Dark Shadows audio drama Bloodlust as Andrew Cunningham, husband of original regular TV show character Amy Jennings. Waterhouse has also appeared as Reverend Cunningham in the Scribe Award-winning Blood & Fire, the Dark Shadows 50th Anniversary story, and performed the short stories Last Orders at the Blue Whale and Tuesdays and Thursdays. In November 2013 Waterhouse appeared in the one-off 50th anniversary comedy homage The Five Doctors Reboot as one of the former companion actors in Steven Moffat's nightmare sequence.
Writings
In August 2006, Waterhouse's debut novel, Fates, Flowers: A Comedy of New York was published. The book was republished in June 2010 by Hirst Books, along with two other books released later that year – Vanitas: A Comedy of New York and the best-selling memoir Blue Box Boy. A third, entitled Precious Liars, was released in 2013. Waterhouse has described the novels as "metaphysical camp". All four books were republished by What Noise Productions and a short story collection called Sugar was published by them in September 2016. Waterhouse has recorded audiobook versions of all his books. He also wrote a Dark Shadows audio story Old Acquaintance which was performed by David Selby.
