Benjamin Cookis a British writer, journalist, video editor, YouTuber, and a regular contributor to Radio Times and Doctor Who Magazine. He has also been published in The Daily Telegraph, TV Times, Filmstar, Cult Times, TV Zone and The Stage, and is the author of Doctor Who: The New Audio Adventures – The Inside Story. In 2008, BBC Books published Doctor Who: The Writer's Tale, based on a year-long email correspondence between Cook and Doctor Who executive producer Russell T Davies. A revised and updated paperback edition, The Writer's Tale: The Final Chapter (featuring 350 pages of new material, extending the correspondence by another year), was published in January 2010.
He is also known for writing and directing the short film The Imp of the Perverse, starring Dan Stokes, Jake Shiels and Myles Wheeler, as well as the documentary series Becoming YouTube.
Early life
Benjamin Cook was born in Isleworth, London, England. He went to Orleans Park School in Twickenham from 1994 to 1999. At the age of 13, in 1996, he won a competition run by BBC children's news programme Newsround. In a 2008 interview, he explained:
The first thing I ever wrote was for Newsround's Press Packers... to enter a competition, and I won that, so I got to go to the BBC for the day – and work at Radio Times for a day, which now of course, a decade later, I'm doing regularly, and getting paid for it! – so that sort of sparked my interest.
He went to Richmond upon Thames College from 1999 to 2001, and then, from 2002 to 2006, attended Collingwood College at the University of Durham, where he studied English Literature.
YouTube and other work
On 16 August 2012, Cook released a trailer on his YouTube account ninebrassmonkeys for his project, Becoming YouTube, a 12-part "weekly" video series about the British YouTube community. Presented in a documentary style and incorporating sketch comedy and fantasy sequences featuring popular YouTube stars. The first episode was launched on 9 December 2012. After uploading the last episode of Becoming YouTube of the first series on 23 February 2014, he announced Project:Library, which is written by Cook, Tim Hautekiet and Jack Howard.
On 7 April 2013, Cook was featured in The Guardian in an article about Britain's 20 most popular video bloggers and about his success with Becoming YouTube. Cook is also involved with the development of Tofu, an 8-part sex-culture web series commissioned by Channel 4 to accompany the television productions Cucumber and Banana.
On 8 January 2015, Benjamin Cook has uploaded a trailer for the 2nd season of his project, Becoming YouTube, claimed to be the last in the series. He also conducted interviews with a number of YouTube personalities including Charlie McDonnell, Emma Blackery, Jack Howard, Daniel Howell, Phil Lester, amongst others.
