Writer, producer, director, broadcaster, and actor, regarded as one of Australia's most celebrated librettists.

In 1995-1997, Watkins was artistic director of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Festival. He served on the board of theatre company Company B at Belvoir Street, and was associate director at the Sydney Theatre Company and commissioning editor at Radio National.

For ten years, Watkins was a part-time tour guide at the Sydney Opera House and its history continued to fascinate him. He studied Arts and Law at the University of Sydney and between 1974 and 1978 was heavily involved in SUDS (Sydney University Dramatic Society). He produced 'Stalin - The Musical', a send-up of the Marxist dictator, and 'The Iceberg Cometh', about the Titanic being raised in Sydney Harbour and going down again. In 1979, he visited England, which confirmed his desire to write and produce shows for Australians, 'people I understood.'

(Source: Miriam Cosic, 'Watkins the Wonder Boy', The Sydney Morning Herald, 16 September 1995, p.15).