[4] Having won a Carleton Hobbs Award in 1979,[5] Cooper had his first lead role in a 1980 radio production of The File on Leo Kaplan.

His other television roles include appearances in A Very Peculiar Practice, The Singing Detective, The Woman in Black, Our Friends in the North, Outnumbered, Ballot Monkeys, Doctor Who: Revelation of the Daleks,[8] Doctors, Kingdom, Trial & Retribution, The Bill, Spooks, Vikings , Casualty, Wizards vs Aliens, The Wrong Mans and Inside No.

He has also worked on the Kaldor City series of audio plays, and had a part in Chimerica at the Harold Pinter Theatre 2013.

[9][10] From 2017 to 2020, Cooper portrayed Sergeant Aubrey Woolf in the BBC One drama, Call the Midwife, leaving after the second episode in Series 9.

[11] From 2018 Cooper has revisited the character of ISPF Inspector Colin Devis in the continuing Star Cops audio dramas from Big Finish Productions.