WHO KILLED ROGER COOK?

18-11-2008

Six years after his last telly series, Roger Cook has re-emerged – but only as an author. Stirrer editor Adrian Goldberg pays tribute to local telly great, and wonders who bumped him off.

It’s hard to imagine Roger Cook surviving in these Elf n’ Safety-conscious times.

Just imagine the Hazard Assessment Form – “might get thrown down stairs; every chance of being shot at; could face death sentence from organised criminal gang.”

Yet it was all in a day’s work for a reporter whose dedicated to winkling out villains was matched only by his bravery.

Chatting to the man last night on Talksport where he was promoting his new book (Roger Cook’s Ten Greatest Conmen) it’s clear that he’s written off any chance of re-emerging on our screens.

“I’ve been described as an expensive dinosaur,” he says. “And I think I probably am.

“If the offer was going to come, it would have come by now.”

Which, if true, is a great pity.

In his heyday, Cook gave investigative journalism a populist face – and a bulky body too, which came in rather handy when he faced a roughing up from some of the villains he confronted.

All told, he’s been threatened with death a dozen times, incurring the wrath of the Russian mafia and the IRA among others.

“I had fear in arrears” he comments wryly.

“If you thought about the risks before you did these jobs you’d never do anything.”

His bravery was certainly appreciated by viewers. At its peak, The Cook Report – made by Central ITV in Birmingham – was essential prime time viewing, running for 13 years until it was axed in 1998.

It wasn’t all punch-ups with conmen and crooks, either – in one memorable show, his team hoaxed Edwina Currie’s daughter into the Top 40 to show how easy it was to rig the charts.

Lightweight successors like Donal MacIntyre have tried – and failed – to emulate his success. They simply don't stand any comparison.

As for consumer-oriented shows like Rogue Traders, House of Horrors and Watchdog, Cook bristles at the comparison.

“There was more at stake than a dodgy washing machine” he comments drily.

But these days, he argues, TV commissioners are simply too afraid to invest the time and money in the kind of eye-catching investigations he specialised in.

Maybe he’s right – but it’s the viewers who are the ultimate losers.

In my opinion there is no television station in the country that wouldn’t be improved by a latter-day Cook Report.

Who killed Roger Cook? It certainly wasn’t the folk back home.

Roger Cook’s Ten Greatest Conmen http://www.johnblakepublishing.co.uk/e-store/product.php?productid=5788

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