Blue Box Boy – Matthew Waterhouse

I have been a fan of Doctor Who since my childhood in the 1970s. Once I became a teenager, my enthusiasm waned slightly and as Peter Davison took over from Tom Baker. One story made a big impact on me though – Earthshock in 1982. Featuring the Cybermen, it was a big milestone in Doctor Who history, as the young male companion Adric was killed off, the episode’s end credits rolling in silence.

Adric was the boy with the gold star badge, the outfit that resembled pyjamas and the bad haircut. He was in the programme from 1980 to his on-screen demise in 1982. He was played by Matthew Waterhouse, who turned 20 while he was in the show and is now aged 48.

This year, Matthew published Blue Box Boy – A Memoir of Doctor Who in Four Episodes. I first saw Matthew at a convention in Manchester in 1997 and found him incredibly intelligent and a really interesting speaker. But it wasn’t until earlier this year that I finally got to meet him, as he was doing a book signing of Blue Box Boy in Yeovil. He was lovely, very charming with a beautiful voice.

I have read lots of biographies, autobiographies and memoirs over the years, as they are amongst my favourite genres, but having read Blue Box Boy, I can say it is amongst the very best – if not the best book I have read in this category. I loved it!

Unusually, Matthew chooses to write in the third person, but once you get used to this, it just adds to the enjoyment and emphasises Matthew’s style. Matthew wrote this book himself, he did not have a ghost-writer and in fact, he also has a novel published (Fates, Flowers) with more to come soon. His writing is easy to read, fun and candid (without ever being exploitative or too revealing).

Blue Box Boy is beautifully crafted and a fantastic read. While in some ways, it doesn’t follow the usual autobiographical pattern of detailing the author’s birth, parents, childhood and so on, these bits of information are there, but they come through in various memories rather than a factual and chronological progression.

In some ways, this means we don’t get to find out everything we may want to know, but this – along with the third person narration – is probably used by Matthew both to guard his privacy and to protect his emotions. He briefly touches on the loss of two of his brothers and despite the third person providing a distance, this is still incredibly moving, but never over-sentimental. You know he is hurting, but you don’t have to be told about it in great detail. This affords him a level of dignity which some writers of autobiographies fail to maintain.

He is happier discussing his time in Doctor Who and understands most of his readers will be especially fascinated in discovering his views on this period. He goes into a good amount of detail on each story he worked on, peppering the text with anecdotes about co-stars and guest actors, which are always interesting.

His honesty comes through again here and he is not afraid to criticise those he worked with, though this is never malicious. While the tabloid press recently tried to make a story out of his comments about Tom Baker having a drink problem and a tendency to argumentativeness, this really is a non-story. Anyone who has read Tom’s own autobiography (Who on Earth is Tom Baker?) or heard him speak will know this; it is not a great secret, but something Tom laughs about himself.

Matthew is not afraid to be self-critical either and happily mocks his naïveté and youth in a way which is truthful but endearing. You can’t help but think he’s a complete sweetheart and there were many times while reading this, when I wished Matthew was in the same room, so I could give him a hug!

For many years, Doctor Who fandom found Adric a figure of fun to joke about and due to this, Matthew himself seemed to also come in for unfair criticism. There were even anecdotes about his apparent arrogance – how he tried to teach veteran film star Richard Todd to act, for example. This is explained in Blue Box Boy and is untrue, of course.

He writes about discovering Doctor Who as a child and how he used to collect the Target novelisations. He explains how he got into acting and his first television role alongside the young Nicholas Lyndhurst. Alongside the filming of Doctor Who, he writes about attending conventions during his time on the series and afterwards, then about his life since and moving to the USA.

I found I had quite a lot in common with Matthew. Besides Doctor Who (He was a fan before landing the role as a companion.), we both love Hammer horror films and British sci-fi like Sapphire and Steel. I even found more of my loves amongst the text – Carry On films, Blake’s 7, Space: 1999 and The Tomorrow People. It was a very good nostalgia trip.

Blue Box Boy took Matthew a year to write and you can see why. At 423 pages, it has a lot of content but you still finish it wishing there was more – which has to be a good sign! I found it a fascinating read, revealing, witty, clever and hugely enjoyable. Matthew comes across very well and it is easy to hear his voice in the words. The only slight criticism I have of the book is that there isn’t a section of photographs that you usually get with this kind of book – but it’s only a minor niggle.

While Adric is not my favourite Doctor Who companion (That honour goes to Sarah Jane Smith!), Blue Box Boy is my favourite Doctor Who related book so far and I would highly recommend it.


Blue Box Boy is published by Hirst Books and is available from www.hirstbooks.com for £11.99.