[3][a] The family moved to Enfield, Middlesex, when he was four years old,[5] which led to his discovering his talent for mimicry: At school I didn't say a word for the first four weeks – I called it my Silent Month.

[2]Whitehouse attended the University of East Anglia reading for a degree in Development Studies from autumn 1976, where he became friends with Charlie Higson.

[6] The pair spent little of their first year studying, instead playing guitar and performing with their punk rock combo, the Right Hand Lovers.

[9] The pair began working as tradesmen on a house shared by comedians Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie, which inspired them to start writing comedy.

They moved to an estate where in a pub they met Harry Enfield, a neighbour with a stage act,[9] and after he gained a place on Channel 4's Saturday Live, the pair were invited to write for him.

This success turned Whitehouse and Higson's career, and they began to appear on Vic Reeves Big Night Out and extensively for the BBC, with Whitehouse appearing on A Bit of Fry and Laurie as a man with a clinical need to have his bottom fondled, and Paul Merton: The Series, then on Harry Enfield's Television Programme, where he developed numerous characters including DJ Mike Smash of Smashie and Nicey, alongside Enfield as Dave Nice.

Whitehouse's characters included Rowley Birkin QC, Unlucky Alf, Arthur Atkinson, Ron Manager and Ted.

The pair's collaboration resulted in Whitehouse taking the witness stand on 24 July 2007 in the trial of Langham, in regard to the charge of holding explicit images and videos of minors.

Langham claimed he downloaded this material as research for a character in the second series of Help, but Whitehouse's testimony only partially corroborated this explanation.

[13] Whitehouse starred alongside Charlie Higson in the BBC2 comedy series Bellamy's People, with the first episode broadcast on 21 January 2010.

The two friends, who both suffer from heart conditions, share their thoughts and experiences while fishing at a variety of locations around the UK, often with anecdotes about Paul's health and Bob's misadventures.

Whitehouse and Charlie Higson produced and appeared in a spoof phone-in show Down the Line on BBC Radio 4.

Comic Relief 2011 contained a new parody video of "Newport (Ymerodraeth State of Mind)" directed by MJ Delaney featuring Whitehouse and other Welsh celebrities lip-syncing to the song.

He also cited his modern influences as Harry Enfield, of whom he said without meeting him, he would not have been doing what he does now, and the approach of Reeves and Mortimer who he described as "far and away the best comedians that we have had in this country for a long while.