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# SPOTLIGHT ON: Divina de Campo
- URL: https://www.scenemag.co.uk/spotlight-on-divina-de-campo/
- Published: 2022-06-07T09:00:29.000Z
- Updated: 2022-06-06T14:28:22.000Z
- Description: Brian Butler talks to a non-binary performer who knows exactly where they’re going
- Author: Brian Butler
- Tags: Arts, Musical Theatre, Chicago, Divina de Campo, Leeds Playhouse, RuPaul's Drag Race UK

**Owen Farrow** aka **Divina de Campo** was spotted by their headteacher when they sang much louder than anyone else at school assembly. “I got lots of solos. There was always lots of music in our house – my mother and brothers played the piano – I’m one of seven – a huge family – so I had to work out how to be noticed”. It didn’t take long.

Mistaken for a girl because of their long hair at auditions for *Oliver!* the musical, Owen was pipped to the post by a boy who had bleached his hair to gain attention. I’m guessing that was a salutary showbiz lesson learned there and then in **Brighouse**, Yorkshire.

Fast forward and Owen takes dance and drama at **Manchester Metropolitan University** on one of its small satellite campuses. “I’d gone there to get my dancing and acting better – I thought my singing was ok”, says the performer who has a four-octave range!

They came to drag in a roundabout way: “I was doing gender-fluid performances at uni and I’d seen some drag queens perform and I was quite snobby about it”. Owen was now a dance development officer and their husband suggested doing a drag act. ”I was terrible to start with. My make-up was terrible for a lot longer”. A spell in Ibiza honed their act, and the realisation that without the imaginary fourth wall there was real interaction with the audience. ”But it took a long time to get my brain into the right place”, they added.

![](https://www.scenemag.co.uk/content/images/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/klg0311-copy.jpg)

Talking about their time on *RuPaul’s Drag Race UK*, Divina as we will now call them is clear: “It’s very open. Anyone can win. It was a long process to get on the show, and in the end you don’t have long to put something together. I knew I was a control freak, but the show reinforced it. I don’t actually like competitions, but it was a massive opportunity and huge platform. The stuff I’m doing now I wouldn’t have done except for *Drag Race*. And yes some of the bitchiness is fabricated – playing to the camera – and some of it is real.

”Some people try to get in your head and make you feel like shit: you have to be ready for it”. But on the positive side Divina’s next role was the falsetto drag Mary Sunshine in the hit musical *Chicago*. “I got it directly because of RuPaul.

”I had the best time with amazing performers **Sinitta** and **Darren Day**”. And of course their four-octave range came in handy: “It’s not something I really talk about. I think I was singing falsetto all the time and when my voice broke, I just kept all of it and got an extra octave underneath.”

![](https://www.scenemag.co.uk/content/images/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/screenshot_2021-12-01_at_10-12-38.jpg)

Divina de Campo – Hedwig and the Angry Inch

At the time of our interview Divina was coming to the end of a run as the lead in the queer rock musical *Hedwig And The Angry Inch* at **Leeds Playhouse** before reprising it in **Manchester at Home**. The critics have raved about it. “The director **Jamie Fletcher** was in the year below me at uni and we’ve worked together over the years. After 10 years we’ve become an overnight success!”

Divina was due to play Audrey 2 in Leeds’ production of *Little Shop Of Horrors*, but the production couldn’t go ahead because the rights were withdrawn. So the first fully staged version of *Hedwig* for 20 years was put in its place. Divina says it’s still globally relevant with its gender-fluid message. “The song *The Origin of Love* is a revelation. It’s a gay origin story. It was a real eye-opener moment for me. Hedwig is really messed up – there’s lots of trauma she’s been through (including a sex change operation) – and some of this stuff I’d been through. I don’t have a particularly strong attachment to my physical body, so I wondered if I’d had a sex change op would I then suffer from dysphoria – and I answered that no I wouldn’t. Hedwig has a more feminine side but what her body looks like is not as much an issue – and I agree with that.

“Yesterday I realised that on RuPaul you’re watching me have a mental breakdown – and so is Hedwig – she’s having a breakdown onstage. So I’ve done that on TV and now every night I recreate it on stage. The show has had a tremendous reaction, but you can never bank on it. Once I’m in front of an audience I feel what’s right and what’s wrong. In this show there was nothing drastic to change.

![](https://www.scenemag.co.uk/content/images/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/klg0144-copy-scaled-e1654525577559.jpg)

”I’d love for it to transfer to the West End, but it’s the rights and the logistics – we’ll record a couple of songs maybe, so there’s some sort of record of it. I think it could do three to six months in a London venue and then six to nine months on tour. It needs a 500-seat venue. You’ve got to think Hedwig could jump out and eat you in the audience, so the audience needs to be close.”

Asked for their coming-out story, Divina told me: “I told all my friends at school and they all went: yes and? We all know you’re gay. All my brothers and sisters support me. My mother was worried for me but she’s wonderful now”.

And finally any advice to a young Owen? “Trust in the path. Keep doing. Enjoy it as much as you can but do not take it so seriously.”

**You can find out Divina’s future shows** [**HERE**](http://divinadecampo.com/?ref=scenemag.co.uk)