Dreamscape | The Toyah Willcox Fansite

• The Ooh Tray: Monkey Business: Note: An ape translation of this review is available – Were it not for an ingenious comic conceit, Steve Oram’s highly original comic melodrama would be a familiar story. A man splits from his wife, meets a woman at a party, trapped in an unhappy relationship, and the two decided to make a run for it and get married, returning to the home and kicking out the ineffectual boyfriend. But in Aaaaaaaah!‘s universe, human language and instinct haven’t evolved beyond that of primates, and consequently you have an eccentric and often brutally honest comedy that lays bare the base instincts and absurd animal behaviour that fundamentally characterises human relationships – Continue reading…

• Screen Relish: #F4FF15 FrightFest: Aaaaaaaah! Review: Aah, the precarious position of the alpha male. Oh should I say AAAAAAAAH!? Because that is the delightfully appropriate title of Steve Oram’s feature directorial debut. An absurd horror comedy, the film offers no dialog at all – just grunts, as humans, devolved into ape mentality, go about their poop-throwing, territory marking, television smashing daily existence. It’s the kind of overly clever premise you expect to wear thin, but honestly, it doesn’t. Much credit goes to a game cast (including Oram) that sells every minute of the ridiculousness, and to Oram again as director. He keeps the pace quick, his images a flurry of insanity you need to see more than once to fully appreciate – Continue reading…

• I’m With Geek: Aaaaaaaah! – Review: Written and directed by Steve Oram (the genius writer behind Sightseers), Aaaaaaaah! is a movie not to be missed. If you like a little strange in your life then this film is absolutely for you. Premiering at Film4 Frightfest last night, some are steal wrapping their heads around the weird and wondering movie. The struggle here, is giving Aaaaaaaah! the review it deserves… – Continue reading…

Bucks Herald: It’s here! Weekend of free live music in Vale Park

Vale Park will be hosting two great days of live music with something to suit everyone. The action starts on 
Saturday with Live In The Park, featuring ten hours of live music culminating in an appearance by 80s singer Toyah Willcox at 8.30pm.

Other acts performing throughout the day include disco band Platform Soul, singer-songwriter Kitty Roisin, guitarist and 
backing vocalist James 
Manders and new wave band The Synthetix.

The second part of the weekend musical bonanza in the park is on Sunday evening with Proms in the Park. Orchestral music begins at 7pm with a fireworks display to round off the evening. Both events are organised by Aylesbury Town Council. Photos and reports from all the weekend’s activities will appear in next week’s Bucks Herald.

• Continue reading at the Bucks Herald. Browse all of our Live In The Park news.

Mix 96: Live In The Park Kicks Off Weekend Of Free Events In Aylesbury

A weekend of free outdoor entertainment in Aylesbury starts today with Live in the Park. The gig in Vale Park replaces Hobble on the Cobbles this year.

It starts at midday with local acts and a funfair and is headlined by 80s superstar Toyah. We gave Toyah a call and asked her if her audience had changed over the years:

“We still have people with us who’ve been with me for 37 years, now they tend to have children and grandchildren and they tend to come along as well. We do though have a new audience increasingly under the age of 25 and I think that’s because 80s music is so popular and it’s popular with all generations.”

• Continue reading/Listen to a short audio interview with Toyah at Mix 96.

A brilliant photo from last night, tweeted by Toyah this morning: “My first Premiere in Leicester Square was fabulous. Thank you to everyone at @Film4FrightFest“. (Photo © Toyah Willcox)

Browse a gallery of great photos, including a number of Toyah, from last night’s Aaaaaaaah! premiere at FrightFest 2015 at Contact Music. (Photos © Contact Music)

Screen talks to the British actor about his feature directorial debut, which receives its world premiere today [Aug 28] at Film4 FrightFest.

Set to be one of the most original films of this year’s Film4 FrightFest, Aaaaaaaah! is a twisted family drama with a difference: there is no dialogue, with all actors speaking in animalistic grunts and moans.

It marks the feature directorial debut of British actor Steve Oram who, along with Alice Lowe, wrote and starred in Ben Wheatley’s Sightseers.

Aaaaaaaah!, produced by Lincoln Studios, receives its world premiere today [Aug 28] and Oram believes FrightFest is the ideal place for the film to make its bow.

“FrightFest accepts and celebrates the weirdos, and we think we fit in quite well there,” enthuses Oram. “It’s the perfect showcase for us. It’s totally un-snooty and just about people who love strange films and horror films. It’s a big opportunity to show it to the people, which is all I care about really.”

• Continue reading at Screen Daily.

Dir/Scr. Steve Oram. UK, 2015, 79 mins.

In its enthusiasm for poo-flinging, food-fights, penis-chewing, cannibalism, tea-bagging and sudden stabbings, the film sets out to shock in a particularly cosy way

Inhabiting a waste ground somewhere between radical theatre and slob comedy, Steve Oram’s debut as a writer-director-star – following up his writer-actor work on Ben Wheatley’s Sightseers – is liable to corner a small but devoted cult following. It’s at least as interested in gross-out gags that out-gross the average Hollywood frat-boy film as it is in delivering a skewed yet pointed look at a suburban Britain where everyone communicates in grunts and gestures the way cavemen and women do in Hammer Fillms’ well-remembered prehistoric adventure films (One Million Years BC, When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth).

AAAAAAAAH!’s specific precedents might include such one-offs as Richard Lester’s post-apocalyptic The Bed-Sitting Room, Akira Kurosawa’s rubbish-strewn Dodes’ka-den or Claude Faraldo’s Parisian troglodyte drama Themroc, but it’s fresh, distinctive and strange enough on its own and tight enough at 79 minutes not to outwear its welcome.

• Continue reading at Screen Daily.

Film4 FrightFest tweeted this great photo from last night’s premiere: Aaaaaaaah! Cast and crew go Ape on the media wall. (Photo © Film4 FrightFest)

• Cine Vue: Steve Oram’s directorial debut, Aaaaaaaah! (2015), comes on like a collaboration between Dogme ’95 and Chris Morris. It’s hard to think of another film closely like it in British cinema. It really is that out-there and singular. You can bet your bottom dollar on Aaaaaaaah! becoming a cult oddity in years to come, but it’s equally fair to say that the general cinema-going audience would be left nonplussed. It’s an experimental work for the arthouse crowd, certainly, but it’s also one of the funniest and most poignant movies of the year – Continue reading…

• Nerdly: Aaaaaaaah! is a film that defies easy categorisation, not to mention pronunciation. It is set in a fictionalised London that looks and operates much like the one we know – except all of its inhabitants communicate purely through animalistic grunting, whooping and mewling. Everyone understands each other (more or less) within the film but the audience is left to figure out the subtext through the actors’ onscreen actions, most of which are violent or hyper-masculine in nature – Continue reading…

• The Velvet Onion: One of the things that distinguishes the artists that we write about at The Velvet Onion is their ability to think differently and to make waves in a sea of entertainment mediocrity. At their best, they conjure up ideas and dream of worlds so creatively vibrant that they force us, the audience, into a different headspace ourselves. In this respect, Steve Oram‘s AAAAAAAAH! (always written with eight ‘A’s) totally nails it – Continue reading…

• Flickering Myth: Aaaaaaaah! is a bizarre choice for a directorial debut, but I can guarantee, hand on heart, you have never seen a film like this in your life. And more likely, you never will either. Due to its incredibly bonkers nature, Aaaaaaaah! is destined to become a cult classic in the same vein as Pink Flamingos, but it won’t appease anyone. It will be very interesting to see the reaction to the movie coming off the back of its debut at FrightFest, that’s for damn sure – Continue reading…

• Movie Ramblings: Once part of the psychopathic duo in Sightseers (Ben Wheatley, 2012), Steve Oram makes his directorial debut with the barmy concept that is AAAAAAAAH! Presented as “Romero and Juliet meets Planet of the Apes”, the bizarre narrative sees 80s queen Toyah Willcox star along side Boosh boys Noel Fielding and Julian Barratt, with Green Wing’s Julian Rhind-Tutt – Continue reading…

Human beings have the same violent tribal urges as wild apes in this surreal horror comedy, the directing debut of British actor and screenwriter Steve Oram.

An outlandish blend of wacko sci-fi horror and grotesque comedy, this low-budget British oddity will divide critics, but it should pick up a devoted following among fans of macabre, surreal, cheerfully disgusting cult cinema. The feature-directing debut of its writer and co-star Steve Oram, AAAAAAAAH! takes place in a contemporary London where humans behave like wild apes, speaking only in simian grunts as they masturbate, defecate, urinate, copulate and engage in deadly tribal rivalries. Vulgar and violent and intermittently hilarious, Oram’s uncompromising experiment in arty trash has its world premiere this weekend as part of Frightfest in London.

• Continue reading at The Hollywood Reporter.

As well as Aaaaaaaah!, 3 Sides Of The Coin, Kaleidoscope Man and Extremis – Toyah is also about to begin work on a fifth new film, Lies We Tell.

Byrneholics reported yesterday: Lies We Tell is in pre-production in the UK, with a release expected in 2016. Director Santosh Sivan tweeted on August 23 that he is headed to West Yorkshire, UK to begin filming.

A trusted driver must deal with his dead employer’s British-Pakistani mistress, her dark past pulling him into a quest to save her 16 year-old sister from a forced marriage to their gangster cousin.

Director: Santosh Sivan, Writers: Ewen Glass (screenplay), Andy McDermott (screenplay), Stars: Gabriel Byrne, Reece Ritchie, Toyah Willcox.

• View further info at the film’s imdb entry.

Film4 FrightFest has returned for more macabre mayhem. The 5 day residency at the Vue West End, Leicester Square marks its 16th year with its biggest line-up to date. From Thurs 27th August to Mon 31st August, the UK’s leading event for horror genre fans returns to present 76 films across five screens, plus a host of other special events.

There are eighteen countries representing 5 continents with a record-breaking 16 European premieres and 26 UK premieres. In addition, there is a further ‘Discovery’ strand at The Prince Charles Cinema, signalling a welcome return to FrightFest’s spiritual home.

The festival kicks off with David Keating’s Cherry Tree, there is the world premiere of Steve Oram’s hilarious and very disturbing AAAAAAAAH!.

• Continue reading at Entertainment Focus. Click below for full details on FrightFest 2015.

The forthcoming New Mills Festival, and Toyah – who plays the festival on Saturday 12th September – are featured in the, just published, new issue of Artsbeat magazine. Click below for more info on how to get a copy/subscribe. (Photo © New Mills Festival/Artsbeat)

This month’s Total Film magazine includes a small photo of Toyah (yes, the now almost legendary shot of her with that frying pan) and article on Aaaaaaaah! on their “agenda” page feature on FrightFest 2015 – the film festival which began today in London.

FrightFest 2015 offers 75 horror movies in five days! Here are a few that are making Agenda’s spine tingle…

We know Steve Oram can do weird, wild and wonderful – with Alice Lowe, he wrote and starred in Ben Wheatley’s Sightseers – but his directorial debut is a different kettle of fish altogether. Or make that barrel of monkeys, because the cast (Noel Fiedling, Toyah Willcox, Oram, Lowe…) communicate only with ape-noises in this bizarre talke of the battle to take over a community. Proof that human beings really are animals.

• View a larger version of the scan here. (Thanks to Lärwi, of The Toyah Willcox Interview Archive, for the scan)

– Aaaaaaaah! premieres at FrightFest tomorrow evening, with Toyah, Steve Oram and the cast in attendance, and also participating in a Q&A session.

Icon Film Distribution (IFD) and FrightFest have announced the first films which will be released under the curated banner FrightFest Presents.

The seven titles selected will all have their UK theatrical premieres at the FrightFest five day festival in August at the Vue Leicester Square and represent some of the most exciting genre filmmakers working today.

The exclusive Icon and FrightFest partnership, first announced in April, will see titles released across the UK and Ireland via the distributor’sdigital partners (including iTunes, Virgin Movies, Sky, Google Amazon, Xbox , Blinkbox, Google, Wuaki, TalkTalk and Volta) giving film fans instant access to some of their favourite FrightFest titles.

FrightFest Presents launches officially on 19 October with a consumer campaign pushing out from the beginning of the month. Each release has the collective backing of IFD and FrightFest across all marketing, PR and social channels.

The seven titles to be released under FrightFest Presents are: AAAAAAAAH!, The Sand, Afterdeath, Landmine Goes Click, Emelie, The Lesson and Estranged.

• Continue reading at the Horror Channel.

Click below to view, or print, the New Mills Festival 2015 programme/brochure.

Ten Unmissable Horrors From This Year’s Festival

FrightFest founder and co-director Alan Jones picks his top ten movies showing at this year’s festival. Tickets are on sale now here and the festival runs at Vue Leicester Square from 27 – 31 August

AAAAAAAAH!: If you liked actor Steve Oram in the quirky comedy thriller Sightseers, chances are you’ll adore his directorial debut, bound to become the cult film of this year and many more to come. Original to the point of WTF, imagine future humanity regressing to ape-like behaviour and put under a wildlife documentary microscope. Dialogue-free and featuring a game cast of Oram’s best mates – including Toyah Willcox, Julian Rhind-Tutt, Noah Fielding and Alice Lowe – this is terrifyingly funny, deeply offensive hilariously sick and unlike anything you’ve ever seen before. David Attenborough, eat your heart out!

• Continue reading at VUE.

Icon, FrightFest confirm first films for new genre label

The Sand and Aaaaaaaah! among first FrightFest Presents acquisitions.

UK distributor Icon Film Distribution and UK horror festival FrightFest have set the first films to be released under their FrightFest Presents banner.

The films will premiere at FrightFest, which gets underway in London on Thursday (Aug 27), before unspooling online between October and February 2016. Digital partners will include iTunes, Virgin Movies, Sky, Google Amazon, Xbox , Blinkbox, Google, Wuaki, TalkTalk and Volta.

Among the first batch of titles is Sightseers actor-writer Steve Oram’s surreal ‘monkey comedy’ Aaaaaaaah!, which Icon will release online this October.

Oram stars alongside Noel Fielding (The Mighty Boosh), Alice Lowe (Sightseers), Lucy Honnigman (The Ex-PM), Julian Rhind-Tutt (Lucy), Julian Barratt (The Mighty Boosh) and Toyah Willcox (Quadrophenia) in the story of a tribe of warring ‘monkeys’.

• Continue reading at Screen Daily.

Sightseers co-writer and star Steve Oram delivers his demented directorial debut AAAAAAAAH! at FrightFest this Friday 28th August. The mad as a plate of badgers, monkey horror/ sci-fi hybrid previews in Discover Screen 1 with Steve, Toyah Willcox and other cast members due to attend.

With stateside screening dates booked, AAAAAAAAH! looks to destined for cult status and is sure to set Steve on a path to greater film-making opportunities. We chatted to Steve about AAAAAAAAH!’s inception and production along with the state of modern indie cinema and the secrets to mining comedy genius.

How do you pronounce the title is it AAAAAAAAH!?
However you want, I will leave that to the viewer. You can say it like AAAAAAAAH! or AAAAAAAAH! or AAAAAAAAH! Many variations. Multi.

How did you come up with such a warped idea? Did it evolve from something else or was it more of a light-bulb moment?
It’s something that has always fascinated me: how ape-like we all are and yet we rarely reference it in our every-day lives. I’ve always been a big fan of Planet of the Apes and did a short film with the same concept a couple of years ago. So I guess it grew from there.

Was it an easy casting process?
I always had a few names in mind: the two Julians (Rhind-Tutt and Barratt), Tom Meeten but Toyah Willcox I wasn’t expecting, I just sent her the script which she loved and was very enthusiastic about. I think if you tell an actor they have to do run around being a monkey, they’ll probably do it. They love that sort of shit.

The soundtrack to AAAAAAAAH! was pretty amazing. As a musician, did you have much involvement?
The main person who provided the soundtrack was Robert Fripp who donated a largely improvised album to us to use however we wanted. So that’s all just the genius of Robert really. I did most of the shit stuff that sounded like an ape made it.

• Continue reading at HeyUGuys.

A great review, of Toyah’s recent Acoustic, Up Close & Personal gig at The Hippodrome, London, by Clare Brotherwood at the UK Theatre Network.

She began acting at the age of 18… at the National Theatre! She has starred in the West End in Calamity Jane, in films such as Quadrophenia, and has worked with Laurence Olivier, John Gielgud, George Cukor and Katharine Hepburn – who admired her bright red hair. This year alone she has made four new films.

But to a generation she is punk rock star Toyah Willcox, who made around 30 albums and won awards for best female singer with self penned hits such as Be Proud, Be Loud, Be Heard; Thunder in the Mountains; It’s a Mystery, and I Want To Be Free.

Last week she reprised these hits in the intimate surroundings of the performing space which is housed above the roulette tables of Leicester Square’s Hippodrome Casino – walking into the building was an experience in itself!

She’s also a TV presenter and only two days before I had been watching her looking for a house on the Thames. So down to earth and friendly did she appear that when the opportunity came up to see her perform live I jumped at the chance – and I’m so glad I did.

I don’t do music reviews. I know what I like but can’t tell you why, so I paid for my ticket and went along as an ordinary punter. But I was so blown away by this little powerhouse of talent that I felt I just had to let people know she is a must-see act.

• Continue reading at the UK Theatre Network. Check out where else you can catch Toyah’s Acoustic, Up Close & Personal tour at her Official Website.

As well as playing a set at Saturday’s Flashback Festival, Toyah also compered – something she has already done this Summer at Rewind Scotland and Rewind North. She was standing in for an unavailable Clive Jackson, aka the Doctor of Doctor & The Medics, who usually hosts.

He explained his absence, and thanked Toyah, at doctorandthemedics.com: “Apologies From The Doc – Hello Everybody out there in Medic Land Do to unforeseen circumstances and a family emergency, The Doc was not able to attend Flashback To The 80’s at Clumber Park Today. Many thanks to Toyah for taking over my responsibilities. Don’t be sad. We have a full gig schedule.”

Toyah Willcox headlines free music festival in Vale Park

Live in the Park, the free music festival being held in Vale Park over the Bank Holiday weekend, is set to be a great day out for all the family.

Starting at noon on Saturday, August 29, 80s’ pop singer Toyah Willcox will perform on stage following eight and a half hours of continuous live music featuring many local bands and musicians, including Platform Soul, the ultimate soul, disco and dance band.

Rob Casey, lead guitarist with Platform Soul, said: “We are very excited that Toyah will be headlining Live in the Park. It’s an honour to share the large outdoor stage with such a popular national star as well as a wide range of talented local artists. Live in the Park is going to be a great free concert in the centre of Aylesbury. It’ll be a gig to remember.”

• Continue reading at Bucks Herald. More info at toyahwillcox.com.