Following National Service with the Royal Scots, Watson joined the RutherglenRepertory, a semi-professional theatre company. In 1956 he joined the Byre Theatre in St Andrews, Scotland, before moving on to Perth Repertory Theatre. There he met his future wife, the actress Joyce Bain.
Television
By 1960 Watson had moved to London and was appearing regularly in BBC radio repertory. In 1964 he was cast in the BBCtelevision production of Martin Chuzzlewit. During his long career Watson appeared in numerous television series, including Dixon of Dock Green, Dr Finlay's Casebook, Taggart, Prime Suspect, Hamish Macbeth, Heartbeat, Two Thousand Acres of Sky, Inspector Rebus and Peak Practice. In Your Cheatin' Heart by John Byrne he played six different parts. Following his return to Scotland in 1970 Watson worked regularly for the BBC and Granada Television, including appearances as Mobilis in Cedric Messina's production of The Physicist and the Miller in The Canterbury Tales for the BBC, for which he also appeared in such series and dramas as The Standard, Hunting Tower, The Camerons, The Nightmare Man and Govan Ghost Story. From 1994 to 1996 Watson played the consultant surgeon Mr Ernest Docherty in the BBC series Cardiac Arrest. He was portrayed as the voice of reason against a management intent on alienating the nursing and clinical staff.
Stage
Watson's stage appearances included The Catch at the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs in London, Tom Stoppard's Every Good Boy Deserves Favour and, as Stanley Evening, Bugler Boy for the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh. At the Edinburgh Festival he appeared in 1970 in Middleton's The Changeling , directed by Richard Eyre, Sir David Lindsay's Ane Satire of the Thrie Estates, and A Wholly Healthy Glasgow, directed by Richard Wilson, in 1987. Watson’s theatre credits continued with appearances in Sam Shepard's Fool for Love, The Treatment and Some Voices at the Royal Court Theatre, The Government Inspector at the Almeida Theatre, Islington, in 1997 and 1998,and Victoria'' for the Royal Shakespeare Company in 2000.
Films
Watson’s film work included Silent Scream, The Big Man and Alan Rickman's The Winter Guest.
Poems
Watson also produced a volume of poems, Dark Whistle, published in 1997.
