Cook first wrote for Doctor Who Magazine (DWM) in March 1999. Since then, his catalogue of interviews for the publication ranges from David Tennant, Billie Piper, Kylie Minogue and Richard E Grant to Peter Kay, Charlotte Church and McFly, and the first ever major print interview with Matt Smith. Cook's regular back-page interview column, Who on Earth is..., has featured such diverse names as Bernard Cribbins, Timothy Dalton, Duncan James from Blue and Professor Richard Dawkins.
Cook has compiled six DWM Special Editions – published between 2005 and 2010, under the umbrella title In Their Own Words – providing a chronological commentary on the making of the TV series, from 1963 to 2009, by those involved in its production, collated from extracts of interviews previously published in DWM.
In 2002, Cook tracked down elusive Doctor Who scriptwriter Christopher Bailey and interviewed him for DWM. This inspired Robert Shearman to write Deadline, an acclaimed audio play starring Derek Jacobi as retired writer Martin Bannister (loosely based on Bailey) and Ian Brooker as journalist Sydney (loosely based on Cook), reporter for the fictional Juliet Bravo Magazine. In a 2004 interview, Shearman explained:
I think Deadline is in some ways inspired by the idea that he gets tracked down by, essentially, Ben Cook. Not called Ben Cook in the play, of course – but it was actually based on DWM's Christopher Bailey interview. Here was a writer who hadn't been interviewed for many years, and was obviously not bitter about it, but had his own perspective of what he wanted to say and do.
In February 2008, Cook had a contentious interview with actor Clive Swift. "I'm quite aggrieved," Swift told him. "Why should I do this? I'm not getting paid, am I?" Swift refused to answer some of Cook's questions and replied brusquely to others. When Cook asked Swift – best known for his portrayal of Richard Bucket in BBC sitcom Keeping Up Appearances – whether people shout "Richard" at him in the street, the actor replied: "Sometimes. I tell them to fuck off." The encounter ended with Swift insisting, "I know that you all think that this is a big world, this Who business. But it isn't. There are much bigger things than this." When Cook replied, "Maybe, but it means a lot to a great many of us," Swift terminated the interview.
In another controversial interview, in January 2010, outgoing Doctor Who star David Tennant told Cook:
Clearly the Labour Party is not without some issues right now but they're still a better bet than the Tories. I would still rather have Gordon Brown than David Cameron. I would rather have a Prime Minister who is the cleverest person in the room than a Prime Minister who looks good in a suit. I think David Cameron is a terrifying prospect. I think he's a regional newscaster who will jump on whatever bandwagon flies past. I get quite panicked at the notion that people are buying into his rhetoric, because it seems very manipulative to me... It's very weird that you can work in the arts – which tends to be about empathy, and understanding the human condition, and hopefully feeling some kind of sympathy for your fellow man – and vote for the Tories. I do find that inconceivable.
Tennant's comments were widely reported, with Cameron offering a rebuttal on Richard Bacon's BBC Radio 5 Live show on 11 January:
Well, that's a pity, but there we are. You're never going to win over everybody. I definitely believe there's no point trying to win over everyone. Say what you think, say what you believe in, say what you believe needs to be done – and if people will come with you, they will come with you. I never give up, so maybe I'll have another go at convincing him.
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