Born: 19th December 1961
Episodes Broadcast: 1980-1982, 1984

Matthew Waterhouse was born in Hertford, Hertfordshire and raised in Haywards Heath, Sussex. He was a Doctor Who fan from an early age and, between 1979 and 1980, had two letters published in early issues of Doctor Who Weekly. Waterhouse also harboured a longstanding interest in acting, and was able to find work as a clerk with the BBC's News Information Office thanks to the help of an aunt who worked as a production manager. He was able to parlay this job into a successful audition for the first two episodes of To Serve Them All My Days, broadcast in 1980.

Shortly thereafter, internal casting adviser Jenny Jenkins put Waterhouse's name forward for the role of new companion Adric in Doctor Who. His unusual looks and undeniable energy trumped his lack of experience, and Waterhouse made his debut as Adric in Full Circle that October, although State Of Decay had been recorded first. Unfortunately, Waterhouse developed an uneasy relationship with his co-star, Tom Baker, who was winding down his time as the Fourth Doctor. He got along better with the younger Peter Davison, Baker's successor, but was now just one-quarter of an expanded TARDIS team that also included Sarah Sutton as Nyssa and Janet Fielding as Tegan. Waterhouse became infamous for his habit of making unintentionally pompous comments, and for awkward gaffes during production -- such as when an overexuberent night of partying resulted in him vomiting just off-camera while recording 1982's Castrovalva.

Waterhouse was dismayed that Adric would be the first companion in 15 years to be killed off

Waterhouse himself became frustrated with Adric's inconsistent character development. As such, he was not entirely disappointed to learn that he would be written out in Earthshock, the penultimate story of Season Nineteen. However, he was dismayed to discover that Adric would actually be the first companion in more than fifteen years to be killed off, precluding a future return to Doctor Who. He worked out his contract by playing an illusory Adric in the following story, Time-Flight, and later made a cameo appearance during the Fifth Doctor's regeneration in 1984's The Caves Of Androzani.

Waterhouse turned his focus to the stage, although he could also be seen in the 1984 movie The Killing Edge. He moved to New Haven, Connecticut in 1998 and concentrated on writing. Waterhouse's first novel, the dark comedy Fates, Flowers, was released in 2006. Hirst Publishing issued an autobiography entitled Blue Box Boy in 2010. Waterhouse long resisted overtures from Big Finish Productions to appear in their Doctor Who audio dramas but, from 2011, he could be heard in their range of plays based on the gothic soap opera Dark Shadows. He wrote a short story for the series in 2017.

Finally, in 2014, Waterhouse relented and began to reprise the role of Adric for Big Finish, initially rejoining Davison's Fifth Doctor for the dual release of Psychodrome and Iterations Of I. He also made a cameo appearance in the 2013 spoof The Five(ish) Doctors Revisited, part of Doctor Who's fiftieth-anniversary celebrations. In 2016, Waterhouse and his husband made a permanent return to the United Kingdom.