There’s a tinsel load of Toyah on TV and radio this festive season:
Neil McCormick’s Needle Time: Vintage TV: Thursday 21st December: 4am
Neil Tennant’s Smash Hits Christmas: BBC Radio 4 Extra: Saturday 23rd December: 7.30am
Neil Tennant’s Smash Hits Christmas: BBC Radio 4 Extra: Saturday 23rd December 5.30pm
Neil Tennant’s Smash Hits Christmas: BBC Radio 4 Extra: Christmas Eve: 5.30am
Most Shocking Christmas TV Moments: My5: Christmas Eve: 10pm
A Very Vintage Christmas (Pt1): Vintage TV: Christmas Eve: 10pm
100 Greatest Toys with Jonathan Ross: More 4: Christmas Day: 9.15am
Toyah’s Christmas At The Zoo: Vintage TV: Boxing Day: 1pm
A Very Vintage Christmas (Pt2): Vintage TV: Boxing Day: 10.30pm
Most Shocking Christmas TV Moments: My5: Thursday 28th December: 2am
The 100 Greatest Musicals (Pt1): More 4: Saturday 30th December: 9.55am
The 100 Greatest Musicals (Pt2): More 4: New Year’s Eve/Hogmanay: 9.45am
Quadrophenia: Film 4: New Years Day: 1.30am
There’s another chance to catch Vintage TV’s Neil McCormick’s Needle Time with Toyah this coming week. A 60-minute special with Toyah talking about her career, music and life.
Neil McCormick’s Needle Time: Vintage TV: Thursday 21st December: 4am
Toyah Willcox. Prolific artist and actor, who enjoyed hits with ‘It’s a Mystery’, ‘Thunder in the Mountains’ and ‘I Want to be Free’, shares the story behind her remarkable career – Running Time: 60 minutes. Vintage TV is available on Sky 369, Freeview 242, Virgin 343 and Freesat 505.
Quadrophenia: Film 4: New Years Day: 1.30am
The Who wrote and produced this energetic story of a young man disillusioned with his life in 1960s London. Phil Daniels excels as the alienated anti-hero Jimmy Cooper. Director: Franc Roddam. Starring: Phil Daniels, Leslie Ash, Toyah Willcox, Philip Davis, Mark Wingett, Sting, and Ray Winstone.
Most Shocking Christmas TV Moments: My5: Christmas Eve: 10pm
Most Shocking Christmas TV Moments: My5: Thursday 28th December: 2am
A merry romp through the most inappropriate, outrageous and appallingly atrocious Christmas television turkeys of all time. These are the kind of disastrous, ill-conceived and downright cringe-inducing moments that it’s a wonder ever made it to air. Among contributors ready to dissect the disasters – many of which they were involved in themselves – are Eamon Holmes, Toyah Willcox, Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen, Anne Diamond, Steve Punt and Mike Read.
A Very Vintage Christmas (Pt2): Vintage TV: Boxing Day: 10.30pm
Snuggling up by the fireside with Toyah Willcox and Roy Wood for some Christmas chat and festive songs are pop rock act The Feeling and Imagination’s Leee John. (Photo © Vintage TV)
A Very Vintage Christmas (Pt1): Vintage TV: Tuesday 19th December: 10.30pm
A Very Vintage Christmas (Pt1): Vintage TV: Christmas Eve: 10pm
Presenters Toyah Willcox and Wizzard’s Roy Wood are cosying up by the fireplace with two guest artists as they talk Christmas and sing favourite festive songs. (Photo © Vintage TV)
Toyah’s Christmas At The Zoo: Vintage TV: Boxing Day: 1pm
Cosy up with family and friends as Toyah Willcox brings you 30 of the finest Christmas songs and a sprinkling of festive stories, surrounded by an extraordinary variety of creatures great and small.
Toyah’s December/Christmas 2017 blog is available to read at toyahwillcox.com.
Check out Toyah’s December adventures at Twitter… (Photos © Toyah Willcox)
Airing on BBC radio for the first time since it was originally broadcast in December 2012, Neil Tennant’s Smash Hits Christmas includes an interview with Toyah during this fascinating 30 minute special, discussing ‘Smash Hits’ in the early 1980s and also the memorable and iconic ‘Brave New World’ cover issue.
Neil Tennant’s Smash Hits Christmas:
BBC Radio 4 Extra:
Sat 23rd Dec: 7.30am/5.30pm | Xmas Eve: 5.30am
Neil Tennant had a life as a journalist before he became famous as a Pet Shop Boy. In fact, it was on a Smash Hits trip to New York that he had his big breakthrough with the record producer Bobby O.
Here, 30 years after his first stint on pop’s most successful and inventive magazine, Neil recalls the golden days of Smash Hits. We hear from founder and legendary magazine maker Nick Logan, editors David Hepworth and Mark Ellen, writers Miranda Sawyer and Sylvia Patterson, and from regular Smash Hits cover girl, Toyah.
We also sample a rare recording from the 1982 Christmas Flexidisc (a message from the stars) and probably Neil Tennant’s first recording – the music for a trailer advertising Smash Hits stickers.
Producer: Susan Marling. A Just Radio Ltd. production for BBC Radio 4.
Toyah’s Vintage Christmas, Toyah’s first festive music special for Vintage TV, originally filmed in 2011, is being re-shown again this Christmas. This has become almost a festive tradition in itself, airing for its seventh consecutive Yuletide. Click on the screen caps to view more.
Toyah’s Vintage Christmas: Vintage TV: Saturday 16th December: 10am
Episode 1. Snuggle down by the fire with the family as punk princess, Toyah Willcox, introduces some of the finest Christmas videos of the 20th Century, sprinkled with a generous handful of fun festive facts.
Toyah Willcox to perform at Jack Up The 80s 2018
Pop sensation Toyah Willcox is set to join T’Pau and Leo Sayer at Jack Up The 80s 2018.
The award-winning rock legend, stage/screen actress, and music composer, has enjoyed a career spanning over 35 years. She has amassed 13 Top 40 singles, recorded 24 albums and toured across the world.
Organisers said “We’re really thrilled, Toyah was a major force of the UK music scene in the 1980s and has remained a well-respected contemporary artist.
“She is renowned for her lively, energetic stage performances during which festival-goers can expect to hear hit singles It’s a Mystery, Thunder in the Mountains, I Want to be Free, Good Morning Universe, Brave New World and Rebel Run.”
• Continue reading at the Isle of Wight County Press. Browse Toyah’s confirmed gig dates and festival appearances for 2018 at toyahwillcox.com.
Pop Punk Princess Toyah Willcox Joins Jack Up The 80s Line Up
One of the most iconic artists of the decade, a regular on Top of the Pops and star of countless TV shows, charismatic Toyah Willcox is set to join hit makers T’Pau and Leo Sayer at Jack Up The 80s next August.
From punk princess to cult stage actress, Toyah is a uniquely gifted performer and an inextinguishable flame. She is one of Britain’s iconic household names, an award-winning rock legend as well as a much-loved stage/screen actress and music composer. In a career spanning over 35 years she has amassed 13 Top 40 singles, recorded 24 albums and toured live across the world.
Jack Up The 80s volume 6 will take place over the weekend of 11th and 12th August and this will be the festival’s second year at its new home Smallbrook Stadium in Ryde.
Owing to the success of the event earlier this year which saw sell-out crowds, 2018 tickets will be strictly limited. Mainstream Early Bird tickets go on sale on Monday 22nd January and will be available to purchase from www.jackupthe80s.co.uk.
• Continue reading at Island Echo. Browse Toyah’s confirmed gig dates and festival appearances for 2018 at toyahwillcox.com.
Toyah, Leo Sayer, and T’Pau are the first acts confirmed for retro festival Jack Up the 80s which will take place at Smallbrook Stadium, Ryde, Isle of Wight from Saturday 11th to Sunday 12th August 2018.
The festival raises funds for local charities and good causes on the Isle of Wight, having raised £20,000 in the past two years alone.
Many more acts will be announced in the coming weeks and months. Early bird tickets go on sale on Monday 22nd January and we’ll have links to buy at that time.
• Continue reading at efestivals.co.uk. Browse Toyah’s confirmed gig dates and festival appearances for 2018 at toyahwillcox.com.
Aaaaaaaah! is airing again, mid-December, on Film4.
Check out our huuuuge Aaaaaaaah! news archive here or by clicking on the screenshots to the left.
Aaaaaaaah!: Film 4: Friday 15th December: 2.20am
Writer-director-star Steve Oram’s experimental satire is set in a parallel present in which, despite wearing clothing and developing advanced technology, mankind never attained the power of speech. Instead, people communicate in gestures and non-verbal vocalisms, ranging from grunts to whistles and growls. And this isn’t the only similarity to our great ape cousins, as social and sexual behaviour is closer to that of gorillas or bonobos and is completely shorn of social niceties. The film opens with a grieving alpha male and his companion ritually urinating on a photo of the dominant male’s wife to mark her loss. They then move through woodland and into London’s sprawling suburbs, intent on staking out new territory for themselves…
Starring: Jade Alexander, Julian Barratt, Missa Blue, Holli Dempsey, Marcus Dempsey, Noel Fielding, Toyah Willcox.
