HALLO SPACEBOY
DOCTOR WHO HAS BROUGHT MATTHEW WATER HOUSE FULL CIRCLE…
WORDS: ROBBIE DUNLOP
© BBC, BILL KENNEDY/MIRRORPIX/GETTY
IT WAS ABSOLUTELY BIZARRE – SO STRANGE AND surreal,” recalls Matthew Waterhouse about landing the role of precocious teenage mathematician Adric in Doctor Who in 1980. “Like a lot of these life-changing things, it actually happened really fast. You go from being somebody who’s hoping to go to drama school to being cast in this major television series, and in my case, one that I really liked and knew well.”
Indeed, to underline his fan credentials, Waterhouse admits to having a poster of Fourth Doctor Tom Baker on his bedroom wall throughout the audition process. When his arrival was announced to the press, he had to decide whether to come clean as a fan. “If you don’t, you have to sort of pretend all the time,” he explains. “I decided very early on that I’d be open about it. I was quite willing to admit that I read the Target books and had always watched the show – that it was my favourite show.”
MEET THY BAKER
Today, Doctor Who cast members are trained in how to deal with press and public attention, but Waterhouse was dropped straight into the programme with no guidance whatsoever. “It’s absolutely amazing how little preparation there was,” he says. “I had lunch with [producer] John Nathan-Turner and then I was straight into rehearsals. I wasn’t even introduced to Baker. Tom arrived late, actually, for the first read-through. I remember him looking the worse for wear.”
Waterhouse found his hero “a very difficult man” to work with and reflects on the “awful” atmosphere that permeated his first three stories. “They really were depressing to make. I don’t like to be negative – I think the E-Space trilogy is absolutely wonderful. But there is no point putting a fake gloss on it now, all these years later.”