TALENT

Embracing the Journey

Being Neighbourly x Davina Cooke, Treasure Chest Theatre

Author/ Being Neighbourly
22 October 2024

In a competition of Who’s Life is the Most Interesting?, there’s a very good chance that Davina Cooke’s would be in the top percentile. We’re talking about how she came to establish the Treasure Chest Theatre and she’s making me alternately gasp, splutter “Really?!” and laugh out loud.

According to Cooke, her upbringing in a “suburb of London” was nothing extraordinary with parents who were “normal rather than artistic”. But, as a child, she unearthed a talent for making her classmates laugh, which she enjoyed as much as they did; and this led to performing for laughs — initially, in the playground.

Cooke says she didn’t know anything about theatre at the outset, but she joined the Young Pleasance and went to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and tours around the UK, which was a great introduction that nurtured a love for it. “We’d visit theatres across the country and it was really fun. It was my first exposure to the theatre and I loved it. It became a home from home.”

Everyone around her imagined her name up in lights (like the people they grew up watching: Harry Enfield, Roman Atkinson, Stephen Fry and High Laurie), and destined for big things, so when she wasn’t accepted by the legendary Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (RADA) in London after auditioning with them, she was devastated. In the whirlwind of disappointment, the dream of becoming an actress was put away. “I could have just re-applied the next year,” she admits with hindsight.

After not getting into RADA, Cooke started writing music. This led to becoming a member of a band. She then went on university to a study a BA in Sound Art and Design at University of the Arts London; and, after graduating, she picked up her guitar again and travelled with her band. Though the members of the band changed over the years, Cooke toured the UK, Norway, The Netherlands and the United States over a period of eight years.

When Cooke wasn’t touring, she was back in London, and like any up and coming, artist, she was surviving in the big city doing a variety of jobs. Cooke had set up a massage business serving corporates in their offices, and she was doing summer work as a concierge at a nudist hotel. She giggles. In 2015, she sold her massage business, funding her move to America, where she started in LA and went to Nashville; finally attended acting classes at the Lee Strasbourg Theatre, circling back to her first love of theatre. She hasn’t looked back since.

“My time in Hong Kong has been magical, while at the same time providing a more stable existence,” she says, sharing that for nine very happy years she has been living with her Mexican partner who is a personal training coach, and their dog.

The highlights of her time here have included having a puppet show funded for international travel, seeing her show performed at Hong Kong International airport, experiencing work with Hollywood via the territory and performing theatre in SEN school, ESF Sarah Roe.

Through the Treasure Chest Theatre, Cooke has written, directed and acts in four plays, The Trip, Cookies for Santa, Hooked and Be You Butterfly. They also adapt classic work and can create new material. The Treasure Chest Theatre gives year-long workshops to schools and corporates.

What’s the best work advice you have received?

“The best advice I’ve had was to ‘ride the wave’, to know that the work you put in will be reflected in your performance. Things may not happen immediately and there will be time when work is scarce and finances are low, but this is the time to grow, learn and enjoy the quiet.

It is hard to do, feelings of guilt, impatience and financial stress will try to trip you up but if you keep believing and travel on the road you are passionate about, then your business journey can truly be magical.

I have found journaling to be a great way to break down negativity!”