The latest edition of BBC Radio 4’s Great Lives is now available to listen to at BBC iPlayer or download as an mp3. It also airs again on BBC Radio 4 on Friday at 11pm.
The programme includes Toyah discussing Katharine Hepburn.
Dubbed an ‘oddity’ and ‘box office poison’, she liked to goad the press and public with her eccentric behaviour and unconventional love life. Her career in Hollywood spanned six decades, during which she starred alongside other Hollywood greats, including James Stewart, Cary Grant, Humphrey Bogart and Spencer Tracy.
The four time Oscar award winning actress Katharine Hepburn is this week’s Great Life. She is championed by singer and actress Toyah Willcox. The expert is Dr Mark Glancy – Reader in Film History, at Queen Mary, University of London. The presenter is Matthew Parris. The producer is Perminder Khatkar.
Photo: Toyah Willcox, Matthew Parris and Dr Mark Glancy after the recording of Great Lives. (Photo © BBC)
“Congratulations on your 150th anniversary. I have always loved working at the Theatre Royal. It is a beautiful venue overflowing with history. Here’s to the next 150 years!”
Toyah Willcox, actress and singer
A couple of photos of Toyah from Saturday’s Acoustic, Up Close & Personal date at St. George’s Theatre, Great Yarmouth. Toyah plays another 10 Acoustic gigs before the end of the year – Check the list for a date near you at the Official Toyah Gigs page. View larger versions of these photos at the Live 2015 page at Dreamscape’s Gallery. (Photos © Layne Patterson)
Celebrity Fantasy Homes: Home: Monday 5th October: 5pm
Celebrities hunt for a new home. Gaby Roslin helps punk-pop princess Toyah Willcox search for a second home, in Richmond upon Thames, with a budget of £650,000.
Toyah has already recorded Live With… Toyah for future broadcast on Vintage TV, and has now been interviewed for a new edition of Neil McCormick’s Needle Time which also airs on the music channel. Vintage tweeted a photo from the recording, saying: “Hugely talented and immensely versatile @toyahofficial shares the story of her career, spanning more than 30 years!“. Click below to see the full photo (Photo © Vintage TV)
The, just confirmed by Breaking Through, airdate/time for Live With… Toyah on Vintage TV.
Live With… Toyah: Vintage TV: Wednesday 7th October: 10.30pm
Live With… Toyah: Vintage TV: Monday 12th October: 10.30pm
We’re launching a brand new show where it’s all about the music! From Sister Sledge and Glenn Tilbrook to Hazel O’Connor and Eddi Reader, we’ve invited musical icons to perform up to six tracks from their repertoire. Filmed in an intimate studio setting. ‘Live With’ gives you all the entertainment of live gig, without having to leave your living room!
• Visit the Live With… page at Vintage TV. The music channel is available at: Freeview 242, Sky 369, Virgin Media 343 and Freesat 509. Click below for further info at toyahwillcox.com. (Photo © Vintage TV)
• On Demand: Aaaaaaaah! will be released as a digital download and on demand via Icon and Frightfest Presents from 19 October. Further info at horrorchannel.com and toyahwillcox.com.
• Aaaaaaaah! at The Electric: Shock & Gore presents Aaaaaaaah! + Steve Oram & Toyah Willcox Q&A Thursday 1st October, 8pm: Screen 2. Tickets are almost sold out – Continue reading…
• Aaaaaaaah! Posters: Extremely limited, beautiful 5 layer screen print by Brighton’s finest The Private Press of Jay Shaw’s artwork for Steve Oram’s debut feature AAAAAAAAH! 100 copies only… when they are gone – they are gone! – Continue reading…
• Taste Of Cinema: Aaaaaaaah! – VIFF 2015 Review: Aaaaaaaah! is adventurous and bombastic postmodern cinema, full stop. Puritans, the easily offended, the mild-mannered and the populist filmgoer need not apply. And this, trust me, is a very good thing… Utilizing a fully committed and courageous cast of unlikely and unlikeable characters, including alpha male Smith (Oram), his object of affection, Denise (Lucy Honigman), the culinarily-challenged Barbara (Toyah Willcox), the emasculated Jupiter (Julian Barrett), and inept shop clerk, Carl (Noel Fielding). The cast alone ensures Aaaaaaaah!’s cult status while its Beckett-like scenario and savage ravel all but cinches it – Continue reading…
• Shooting People: Aaaaaaaah!: One of the cinematic highlights of my year has been watching Steve Oram’s sensational new film “AAAAAAAAH!”… “AAAAAAAAH!” which is perhaps the best sequel I could ever imagine to the original “Planet of the Apes” is funny, obscene, ludicrous, poignant and braver, bolder and better than anything else you will see this year- Continue reading…
• Aaaaaaaah! @ Dreamscape: Browse all of our related news…
Discover true terror on October 19th as Icon Film Distribution and FrightFest, the UK’s leading genre film festival, team up to launch FrightFest Presents, an all-new expert driven social community-building label ready to deliver true shocks and scares straight into your home just in time for Halloween and beyond…FrightFest Presents will bring you the most unsettling feature films from the festival; a series of movies that wowed and earned critical accliam hand-picked by FrightFest directors Alan Jones and Paul McEvoy.
The first phase of six films hand curated by FrightFest Presents will be available to download from October 19 and are: The Sand, Estranged, After Death, Aaaaaaaaah!, Night of the Living Deb and Some Kind of Hate.
• Continue reading at the Horror Channel.
Dubbed an ‘oddity’ and ‘box office poison’, she liked to goad the press and public with her eccentric behaviour and unconventional love life. Her career in Hollywood spanned six decades, during which she starred alongside other Hollywood greats, including James Stewart, Cary Grant, Humphrey Bogart and Spencer Tracy.
The four time Oscar award winning actress Katharine Hepburn is this week’s Great Life. She is championed by singer and actress Toyah Willcox. The expert is Dr Mark Glancy – Reader in Film History, at Queen Mary, University of London. The presenter is Matthew Parris. The producer is Perminder Khatkar.
BBC Radio 4: Tuesday 29th September: 4.30pm/Friday 2nd October: 11pm
Great Lives, Series 37 – Episode 9 of 9
Household name, pop icon, TV presenter and actress Toyah is performing at the Engine Shop at Enginuity in Coalbrookdale on Friday evening, 2 October.
Tickets to ‘Acoustic, Up Close & Personal with Toyah’, which are priced at £20 per person, are available in advance only. They can be purchased online or from the Ironbridge Visitor Information Centre and any of the Ironbridge Gorge Museum shops. Tickets include admission into Enginuity from 5pm, the auditorium opens at 7pm and the performance starts at 8pm. There will be an interval and light refreshments and bar drinks will be available; Ironbridge Gorge Museum Passports are not valid for this event.
For further information call the Ironbridge Tourist Information Centre on 01952 433 424 or visit www.ironbridge.org.uk, where tickets can be also be purchased.
• Continue reading at Shropshire Live.
• Louder Than War: Top 10 great Robert Fripp collaborations : number 8: Fripp’s marriage to Toyah Willcox is one of the great curveballs in his life – the reserved, cerebral guitarist allied to the splurge of colour and emotion of the exuberant Ms Willcox. After their wedding in 1986 it took the pair a few years to collaborate on the overlooked Sunday All Over the World album in 1991, while more recently Fripp helped launch Toyah’s band The Humans – Continue reading…
• Halton BC: Toyah Comes To Town: Household name, pop icon, TV presenter, and stage and screen actress Toyah Wilcox comes to The Brindley next month – Continue reading…
• STV Aberdeen City: We’ve told you before about Paul Breen, who has raised thousands of pounds for charity, despite being left disabled by a brain aneurysm. At the weekend, Paul went to see his boyhood idol Toyah Willcox playing live in Stonehaven. And he met her! (Thanks to Lärwi and William) – Continue reading…
• Blackmore Vale Magazine: Toyah Willcox in Sturminster Newton next month: Toyah comes to The Exchange, Sturminster Newton this October with her Acoustic, Up Close & Personal show – Continue reading…
• The Toyah Willcox Interview Archive: Read full transcripts of Toyah’s recent interviews on Mix 96 and BBCR2′s Dermot O’Leary show – Go read…
Aaaaaaaah! was featured in The Sunday Times’ Culture magazine on 20th September – Monkey business – The actors go ape in a new movie that has grunts instead of gags. It’s already a cult hit. Click below to read the article. (Thanks to Lärwi for the scan)
Secret Diary Of A Call Girl: Sony TV: Wednesday 30th September: 10.30pm
Series One. Episode Two. Belle is invited to a prestigious adult party, but her client doesn’t want to join the action. Starring: Billie Piper, Toyah Willcox, Aleksandar Mikic, Jamie Sives, Aislinn Sands and Scarlette O’Harlette.
Toyah’s on tour and still loving the music as she heads to Scotland
Toyah Willcox may have enjoyed most of her chart success in the 1980s but anybody who thinks she has slowed since then has not been paying attention.
This year, for instance, she has been involved in four feature films and has added regular TV work to her multi-faceted repertoire, which has encompassed everything from Quadrophenia and Casualty to Doctor Who and I’m A Celebrity.
Yet, much as she enjoys appearing on the screen, Toyah remains in love with rock music.
Next week, she and her band will bring such hits as It’s a Mystery and I Want to Be Free to Stonehaven Town Hall for a brace of concerts on September 18 and 19.
Then she’ll be at the Gardyne Theatre in Dundee on September 20.
• Continue reading at STV Aberdeen. (Thanks to Lärwi and William)
Toyah plays an Acoustic, Up Close & Personal date at St. George’s Theatre, Great Yarmouth this evening. Click below for more details.
Welcome to our 150th “Newsy Bits & Pieces!” since changing to the WordPress format three years ago…
• Straight: Your guide to the 2015 Vancouver International Film Festival: Of the 350-plus other movies coming to Vancouver between September 24 and October 9, let’s say it’s not unreasonable to expect the same quality, not to mention journeys near and far… Among the cinematic delights at this year’s Vancouver International Film Festival is the appropriately titled AAAAAAAAH!, starring Toyah Willcox – Continue reading…
Den Of Geek: Aaaaaaah! review: Looking for a very different – and disturbing British indie comedy? Then check out Steve Oram’s Aaaaaaaah! If one of the jobs of a filmmaker is to present us with something we haven’t seen before, then it’s mission accomplished for writer, director and actor Steve Oram – Continue reading…
• Classic Rock Revisited: Tony Banks – A Chord Too Far Review: The rock side of Banks has seen 
him collaborate with the world’s most respected musicians including singers Toyah Willcox, Fish and Nick Kershaw – Continue reading…
• Rebel Run: Released this very week in 1983 – Now get down and stay down – A Toyah pop skatertastic classic! Download ‘Rebel Run’ at iTunes, view the promo video, and the airing on Top Of The Pops. Watch Toyah perform the single on Hold Tight and Saturday Superstore. Listen to the song live at Hammersmith Odeon on the ‘Rebel Run’ Tour in December 1983. Andromeda Rising covered the song in 2005. Listen to their version here.
Mearns FM: Toyah in Stonehaven: Eighties pop icon Toyah Willcox will play Stonehaven Town Hall this Friday and Saturday night (18th & 19th September) with the singer eager to look around the town – Continue reading…
Toyah discusses, the inspirational, Katharine Hepburn in an upcoming edition of BBC Radio 4’s Great Lives.
Great Lives: BBC Radio 4
Tue 29th Sep: 4.30pm/Friday 2nd Oct: 11pm
Biographical series in which guests choose someone who has inspired their lives, presented by Matthew Parris. Toyah Willcox champions the life of Katharine Hepburn, who she met and worked with.
• Thunder Valley Rocks: Is a new TV programme based around new and upcoming bands. We will be filming a pilot for a new 9 episode series in November/December of this year and the subsequent episodes will begin filming early next year. Each episode, presented by Toyah Willcox will also feature celebrity music guests who give some insight into their past success and talk about what they are doing now – Continue reading…
• Toyah @ Twitter: “Simon Darlow & I are recording EXTREMIS outro song. We cant stop crying it is so powerful” – Visit Twitter…
• Straight: VIFF 2015: Aaaaaaaah! provides many delicious moments: The conceit in this much-buzzed-about U.K. effort might be a little slight—nonverbal humans behave like apes, thus commenting on the thin veneer of civilization, yada yada—but writer-director-star Steve Oram (Sightseers) provides so many delicious moments of passing Dadaism that it all works beautifully. A fully game cast sure helps, ’80s new wave crumpet Toyah Willcox among them. (Her hubby, Robert Fripp, supplies the soundtrack.) – Continue reading…
• Proud, Loud & Electric: There’s a quadruple of “Electric” gigs over the next four nights for Toyah – Playing two dates at Stonehaven Town Hall (18/19th September) and one at Dundee’s Gardyne Theatre (20th September). The first of the four is tonight, Toyah plays at Stockton Arts Centre. Click below for more info on that.
BBC asks viewers to share their musical memorabilia to tell ‘The People’s History of Pop’
Do you treasure a ticket stub from David Bowie at Aylesbury Friars? Is there a glow-stick from an illegal rave in your attic? Does your teenage diary list every band you ever saw in painstaking detail?
Now the BBC is asking viewers to share their most cherished musical possessions to help tell The People’s History of Pop through a unique crowdsourcing appeal. An online archive is being created for a new BBC4 series which will tell the story of British rock & pop music from the 1950s to the noughties – but without the traditional narrative from chin-stroking “experts”.
Craig Astley uploaded a picture of himself, then aged 4, with his first pop idol, the punk singer Toyah after a concert in Newcastle. “Sixteen years later and I received a phone call from Toyah herself if I would be interested in running her website,” writes Astley, who now manages the singer’s archive. “Pop dreams can come true.”
• Continue reading at The Independent. View further info here.
Eighties pop icon Toyah Willcox will play Stonehaven Town Hall this Friday and Saturday night with the singer eager to look around the town.
The former punk princess – whose biggest hit was ‘It’s A Mystery’ spoke to the Mearns Leader this week about playing Stonehaven, looking forward to fish and chips and what fans can expect.
Toyah said: “I’m really looking forward to the show as we’ve never been to Stonehaven and it is great to have the chance to go there. As it is on the coast I’m looking forward to getting to know the town and I love history so I’d love to walk around the museum.”
The event is being organised by music shop owner Chris Stirk with tickets still available for both shows. Toyah’s two gigs follows her successful appearance recently at the Rewind festival in Perth with the singer adding that she’ll have all the hits and maybe a few surprises for those attending.
She said: “I think fans are going to really enjoy the show as it is fun and it is really about them. I’ll have all the hits, the singles from the 80s and singles that have charted on iTunes in the last couple of years. It will be a fun and able show, where we’ll look to put in a few other songs.”
• Continue reading at the Mearns Leader. See all of Toyah’s forthcoming Proud, Loud & Electric gigs at toyahwillcox.com.
Photos from Toyah’s recent Derby Flowerpot (11th September) and New Mills Festival (12th September) concerts. View larger versions of these photos at the Live 2015 page at Dreamscape’s Gallery. . (Photos © Angus Turner)
