From Stoke to the stars

2025 promises to be an exciting year for Divina de Campo as she gears up to debut her new one-woman show I Do Think. Ahead of the tour, Ian Brooks spoke to the performer about the parts of drag that bring her joy.

With hundreds of thousands of followers across social media and an extensive CV in TV, music, and theatre, there may not be a soul in the UK or Ireland drag community who does not know Divina de Campo. Starting drag in 2005, she was forged on the Stoke-on-Trent scene where she wetted her feet before becoming a mainstay in Manchester. The performer has gone on to build an impressive resume of television projects, including, of course, coming in second place on the first season of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK. As a self-declared ‘theatre kid’, de Campo has also performed in hits such as Chicago, Sleeping Beauty, The SpongeBob Musical and Adult Panto. In 2025, de Campo will take to the road again with Adult Panto: The Wizard of Oz, as well as her onewoman show I Do Think.

Ahead of the tour, I sat down with Divina, known off-stage as Owen Richard Farrow, to talk about their journey into drag and their career to date.

Divina, thank you for joining us. I spent 20 years enjoying the Manchester pub and club scene, and I have seen you perform many times. To get this conversation started, how did Divina come to be?

I was encouraged by my husband Paul to try drag. I was trying on clothes and doing non-gender-specific performances—I am non-binary, and it was a bit of a lightbulb moment. I am not a man or woman, and 20 years ago, there wasn’t the language for it.

Also, 20 years ago, being a drag queen as an art form sort of fell out of favour. Some saw it as being a bit naff, and it came with all these worries like you wouldn’t find a boyfriend or have productive relationships. Lily Savage was doing her thing, but as she reduced her visibility, you could start to see the decline in drag and as a whole, representation on TV and wider representation just wasn’t there.

Paul, my long-suffering husband, encouraged me to get started. “You can sing, you can dance, you can perform. You really could make some money…” As it happens, it took me about 10 years before I would start to make some real money as Divina. But that is how it started. The genesis was Paul giving me that push.

When you started on the drag scene, were you confident in the type of performer you wanted to be?

When I first started, I was known as Madame Fedino and I would talk with a heavy Italian accent. I would sing operatic numbers. So I came in with this idea, you know, this highfalutin, high art, and I am gonna be a diva, but the reality is very different. The audience expects something very different. So, although I have done a few bits and bobs, which strangely enough worked, in general and at 9:30 at night in Stoke-on-Trent, I learned quickly to adjust my performance to give the audience what they wanted.

So, starting in a more regional setting like Stokeon-Trent was a great place to cut your teeth, so to speak?

That was one of the things that was great about Stoke. The audience that I had built over the six years or so, they were forgiving. So if you were doing four numbers throughout the night, as long as three of them were ok, then one could be a bit shonky and experimental, and they would let it slide. They let you have that experiment and were very loyal, so it gave me the freedom to try new stuff. I really did cut my teeth there.

Stoke taught me that I could make people laugh, and I was able to take that spirit to Manchester and places like London, making it easier. A lot of people don’t realise this, but Stoke has had a lot of big clubs, and people would travel from all over the UK, like Manchester, Birmingham and South Wales, to go clubbing. There was drag all over the city, so the people of Stoke have been watching and enjoying drag for years now. They were a hard audience because they had seen so much, and if they didn’t like what you were giving them, they would let you know.

I got a real feel for what to look for, and if you are in that space and really listening as a performer, you will feel what the audience likes, and you can shift and navigate through the event. Stoke really taught me that, and with my theatre background, you put things on the stage, and you show them what you got! You are expected to constantly rework and rejig and reorientate yourself and again, getting to work in Stoke, them being appreciative, accepting, forgiving, but also in no uncertain terms afraid to tell you what they think, I got a lot of precious time to work on that skill.

You mentioned you have a musical theatre background, do you have a preference when it comes to singing, comedy or dance numbers?

The thing about drag is that you can do anything; there is no hard and fast rule. Drag Race has been amazing for lifting the profile for drag, but it’s also not been helpful. It has kind of homogenised drag in a lot of ways and people’s views on drag and what drag should be. But drag can be anything! That is the joy of it. I am sitting here looking at a tree, and it has some loopings, and if I wanted to, I can turn that into a costume and create a number on spring and growth. It’s Easy Being Green… Just from the idea of that tree.

Drag gives you the freedom to be creative but also has its origins in being political.

Through the art of drag, you can say your part, you can do everything and anything, and that is the joy of it, and I love the theatre of it.

What I used to do as well at The Factory, which allowed me plenty of creative space and freedom to try such things, in our first number, for example, we would talk about current events, things in the news right now or other special events going on within the community. We would make jokes about the news cycle, politics, celebrity news and culture, all that kind of stuff. In preparing for these shows, I would learn more about what was happening in the world around me than I ever did from the news.

Do you feel passionate about the political landscape at the moment?

Absolutely, but that is because drag is inherently political, so there has to be space in drag performance for just that. There have been times where we have dressed up as old ladies and carried signs which say ‘F*gs’ or ‘Kill the gays’, challenging the pretence of religion that claims to be all-loving and giving but is sometimes all rooted in hate. The same can be said for the far-right. So much of what they do in the world is about hurting and hating other people, not about loving thy neighbour, and I adore that drag gives you the chance to challenge that.

We have mentioned Drag Race already, what was your experience like?

The environment is pressurised, the days are long and it is really tough. It can be a real gauntlet, and my takeaway from the experience was that it was extremely hard.

Like I said, I came from a theatre background and with my drag, I have always tried to make a space where we support each other and we create a space where people can learn and grow from each other. Drag Race isn’t that; it is, of course, a competitive space and every single day you walk through that door, you know that someone wants you gone. But I made some incredible friendships from the show and got to meet many wonderful people with whom I am still in contact today.

What advice would you give a new queen entering the Drag Race world?

You have to believe in yourself. Self-belief is something I didn’t necessarily possess going in. I am not always outwardly confident, although I do try to be.

Be able to sew! Take some lessons. Learn, learn, learn. Look at challenges that have already been done before. How would you have done them? Think ahead. I watched lots of runways of Westwood, Galliano and Dior, and I had all these references in my head ready to go.

Finally, work on your snatch game. Pick a funny character. Make people laugh. Don’t fail at it like I did.

Well, Divina, thank you very much for your time. It’s been a blast, and I wish you all the luck on your tour and one-woman show. We hope to see you in Dublin soon!