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Ali Cook

Ali Cook
Ali Cook as Sgt. Paul McMellon in Kajaki
Born	Alistair Cook Yorkshire, England
Occupation(s)	Actor, comedian

Ali Cook (also credited as Alistair Cook) is an English actor and comedian from Yorkshire.^[1] Cook played Sgt. Paul McMellon in the feature film Kajaki, which won the Producer of The Year Award at the 2015 British Independent Film Awards and was nominated for a British Academy of Film and Television Arts Award in 2015.^[2]

He recently wrote and acted in the short film The Cunning Man,^[3] winner of the Arri Alexa short film competition which was long listed for a BAFTA and has currently won over 30 awards.^[4][5][6]

Cook's career started on the Channel 5 sketch series, The Jerry@Trick show with the alternative comedians Phil Nichol and Boothby Graffoe. Andrew Newman, then the head of comedy at Five, spotted Cook during tapings which lead to him writing and starring in seven of his own comedy and Magic series for Channel 4, Channel 5, and Sky1. His Channel 4 Series Dirty Tricks was nominated for a British Comedy Award and The Golden Rose of Montreux.^[7]

Cook's acted in the Channel five sketch series Jerry@Trick Show before moving on to co-write and star in TV series, including The Golden Rose of Montreux nominated Monkey Magic (UK TV series), Psychic Secrets Revealed with Derren Brown for Channel 5 and the Secret World of Magic for Sky One. Cook was the star of Channel 4's British Comedy Award nominated, late night show Dirty Tricks.^[8] Cook starred in the first Penn & Teller: Fool Us (ITV) hosted by Jonathan Ross. In 2011 he performed his Houdini-style water torture cell escape on The Slammer (CBBC).^[9][10]

He has also starred in the France 2 series Le Plus Grand Cabaret du monde produced by Magic. Recent television credits include: Ragdoll for AMC, Mr Selfridge, the role of the villainous Patrick in multiple episodes of Emmerdale in 2016 and the German officer in the BBC's 2018 adaptation of Agatha Christie's The ABC Murders.^[11]

Cook portrayed Sgt. Paul "Spud" McMellon in 2014's Kajaki. The production won the Producer of The Year Award at the 2015 British Independent Film Awards and was nominated for a British Academy of Film and Television Arts Award in 2015.^[12]

Cook stars alongside Katherine Parkinson and Jay Pharoah in 2018's How To Fake A War, directed by Rudolph Herzog and produced by Film and Music Entertainment.

Other recent credits include: Twist for Sky Cinema, The Obscure Life of the Grand Duke of Corsica starring Timothy Spall, Muscle directed by Gerard Johnson, In the Cloud directed by Robert Scott Wildes for Sony Pictures, Once Upon a Time in London directed by Simon Rumley, and British Independent Film Awards nominated thriller Isolani.^[13]

In 2011 he appeared in Outside Bet, directed by Sacha Bennett, alongside Bob Hoskins, Phil Davis and Jenny Agutter. He has played the lead role in ten British short film dramas, most notably the psychotic character Greg in Andrew Saunder's and Stephen Frears' Striklem

In 2011, Cook was an executive producer on the feature film Dark Tide, starring Halle Berry.^[14]

• 2019 The Cunning Man, Harvest Films

Cook has written and performed three critically acclaimed sell-out Edinburgh solo shows: A Touch of Vegas (2008),^[15] Pieces of Strange (2010),^[16] and Principles and Deceptions (2011)^[17]

• "Interview: Ali Cook, magician, comedian", The Scotsman, 11 August 2010, retrieved 10 September 2022
• Arthur, Tim (5 July 2010), "Ali Cook: interview", Time Out, archived from the original on 3 February 2019, retrieved 3 February 2019
• Wise, Louis (5 July 2015), "Grand illusions", thetimes.co.uk, retrieved 10 September 2022

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