Premiering today – Toyah & Robert Fripp – Caffeinated Mouse Tap Dancing to “Fracture”. Toyah & Robert’s Sunday lunch this week is a visual representation of what King Crimson’s Fracture sounds like to Toyah. Fracture is arguably the hardest King Crimson song to play on guitar.
I rarely get personal on here. This website is about Toyah’s career, not me or my life! But today I’d like to pay a little tribute to my late Mum. On this day in 1997, 23 years ago, my Mum, Isobel, died. Today would also have been her 79th birthday. Yes, my Mum passed away on her 56th birthday! I miss her every day – Here is a great photo of my Mum, with my cousin, taken in my teenage bedroom back in late 1982. Happy memories!
New Guests Added To Conversations With… Mark Curry In Aid Of Acting For Others
Further guests are today announced for Mark Curry’s Conversations With… series in aid of Acting For Others. Each conversation, taking place via zoom, is an in-depth look into the guests lives and careers, as well as finding out their thoughts and tips on getting through lockdown, Mark speaks to a mix of interviewee’s including performers, presenters, and directors. Joining the previously announced guests are Vicki Michelle, Millicent Martin, Sally Hughes, Robin Herford, Toyah Willcox and Annabel Croft.
… Interviews will be released via Acting for Others’ YouTube weekly. They are free and available to all, with the opportunity for viewers to donate in support of the charity: justgiving.com/campaign/actingforothers
• Continue reading at Broadway World. NB: Airdate to be confirmed for In conversation with Toyah Willcox about being an ’80’s singing legend, her acting career and how she’s kept the success going through the years.
Re-uploaded to this website’s You Tube channel recently, Sky Trax – The 1985 Toyah Special; a great Minx-era interview; and BBC Breakfast Time, a much shorter but still interesting Desire-era interview. These uploads have both been edited to remove all music from them, which was the reason they were originally made unavailable by You Tube.
Lots of other quirky clips and footage have also been added to our channel: Toyah, Superhits, Monster Munch 80s adverts, and more! Click below to visit and/or subscribe!
Toyah tweeted and instagrammed yesterday that she had just received her Toyah & The Humans Noise In Your Head box set. Please click on either of those links to see the photo. Toyah’s second box set of 2020 is released on 3rd July and can be pre-ordered by clicking below.
Trailblazers: Sky Arts: Monday 22nd June: 2pm
Trailblazers: Sky Arts: Saturday 27th June: 10am
New Romantics. Toyah Willcox and Billy Bragg are among those examining the New Romantic movement, from The Human League and Adam Ant, to David Bowie and Ultravox. (Series 1, Episode 16)
On June 6, 1980 Toyah released The Blue Meaning, an album that would top the UK Indie charts. Fronted by the multi-color haired Toyah Willcox, who played Monkey in 1979’s The Who album-inspired Quadrophenia and acted beside Kate Hepburn, the band had already scored a UK#1 Indie single with “Victims Of The Riddle”and expectations were big.
The album, now considered a cult classic by some, peaked at UK#40 on the mainstream album charts. The band would soon break up.
The articles I’ve read about Toyah Willcox from that time don’t reveal much, but in 2017, she was interviewed by BBC Radio for their Inheritance Tracks segment and we learned she had strict parents who, when she was very young, made sure she was in bed by 6:30 at night, not to be seen again until 7 AM the next day. Her mother picked out her clothes. She was dyslexic, number-blind and club-footed, and she determined to be seen and heard:
• Continue reading at 40 year Itch.
A new date at The Apex, Bury St. Edmunds, on Tuesday 1st June 2021, has just been added to the Electric Ladies Of The 80s Tour. Tickets are on sale now. Click below for more info or to book.
This week Toyah & Robert are both doing what they do best on a Sunday… (© Toyah Willcox)
Rounding off The Blue Meaning‘s 40th with… this! Play loud and celebrate!!
Happy 40th Anniversary to one of the great landmarks of Toyah’s music career – The Blue Meaning. The second long-player (as they were once called) and first full studio album, was released exactly 40 years ago today, in June 1980.
An amazing album and Toyah era, The Blue Meaning is significant for a number of reasons: It was the first Toyah release to enter the Official UK Chart (though earlier singles and the first album had all scaled the peak of the Indie Chart).
It also boasted incredible imagery, artwork and high design standard which would become synonymous with Toyah’s music career and future releases. The album also includes Toyah’s most legendary song, the perennial fan-favourite, Ieya! No Toyah gig is complete without it.
Over the past four decades the album has increased in significance, becoming a crucial part of Toyah’s discography. Everyone loves Anthem (who couldn’t?), The Changeling is a favourite of many fans, Love Is The Law saw Toyah’s vocals soar, Minx still divides opinion, Prostitute mindboggled us all, Ophelia’s Shadow as beautiful, intricate and unique as any album by Kate Bush or Tori Amos, In The Court Of The Crimson Queen introduced Toyah to a new audience while also delighting longtime fans, and yet The Blue Meaning came before all of the aforementioned and 40 years later still intrigues and entertains with each and every listen. Click below for our feature.
Ramblings: Joyful Highlights Part 4 – Singers & Writers is now available to download, from the BBC website or as an Apple Podcast.
Clare Balding recalls her favourite walks with a colourful variety of writers and singers including Bill Bryson, Toyah Willcox, folk duo Ninebarrow, and the choral group Werca’s Folk.
Clare has been walking on air since 1999, and for this lockdown series of highlights has been digging into the archives to retrieve some of her most memorable moments: Today she gets dressed with Bill Bryson, takes a lift across a small puddle with Toyah, discovers that Dorothy Wordsworth avoided marriage so she could continue walking, and hears from author Emma Mitchell about exactly why our mood is lifted when we spend time in nature.
Quatermass: Talking Pictures TV: Tue 9th June: 9pm
Chapter Four: An Endangered Species. Quatermass showing signs of his recent narrow escape emerges from the car park to find the stadium empty. An estimated 70,000 people died there. So many have now been harvested that the particles of dust in the air have turned the sky green. Kapp attempts to repair his equipment in order to contact the alien presence, but the Planet People destroy his efforts. They try to persuade him to join them but he refuses, convinced now that his family are dead. Quatermass, aided by Gurov, who has travelled to London from Moscow, assembles a team of scientists to find a solution. He deliberately selects old people for the task as they are immune to the call of the alien force. Quatermass decides to set a trap. He plans to fake the presence of a gathering of a million young people at Kapp’s observatory and, when the force comes, to detonate a 35 kiloton nuclear weapon. It is a focused charge where most of the force will go upwards, causing little damage in the area. Quatermass does not believe this will be sufficient to destroy the alien machine but he hopes that it will shock it enough to make it go away. Kapp volunteers to stay behind with Quatermass to help detonate the bomb. The pair set up the trap and wait in darkness. Suddenly, Kickalong appears with a group of Planet People, including Quatermass’ granddaughter, Hettie. Kapp tries to warn them away but is shot and killed by Kickalong.
The light appears, indicating that the alien force beam has arrived, but the shock of seeing his granddaughter among the Planet People causes Quatermass to suffer a heart attack. She has recognised him too and struggling to reach the detonator button, Quatermass is aided by Hettie and together they detonate the bomb. Later in a world that is recovering from the recent fall of civilization, Gurov tells us: “The message was taken. It has not come again. We pray it will never come again”.
This episode originally aired on 14th November 1979 on the ITV network and was watched by 11.2m viewers in the UK. The 1979, four-part, mini series Quatermass (also known as The Quatermass Conclusion or Quatermass IV) is airing weekly from Tuesday 19th May. Stars John Mills, Simon McCorkindale, Barbara Kellerman, Ralph Arliss, Rebecca Saire, Toyah Willcox, David Yip, Alison Dowling.
• Talking Pictures TV is An Archive Film & TV Channel. Available on the following platforms/channels: Freeview 81, YouView 81, Freesat 306, Sky 328 and Virgin 445.
Pete Prodge has tweeted that his new interview with Toyah airs this Saturday at Tiswas Online.
Been chatting with Toyah about The Goodies, Kenny Everett, Laurel And Hardy, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd and some Saturday morning show called Tiswas. The interview airs this Saturday.
• Watch online at Tiswas Online this Saturday morning at 10.30am (yes, the same time that the show used to air in the 1980s on ITV every Saturday! – Not sure if the Phantom Flan Flinger will make an appearance, but you never know!)
One of the little joys of the past few grim months have been the videos by Toyah and hubby Robert Fripp where they dance, sing and muck about in their kitchen and garden. Here’s a particularly quirky one.
• Continue reading/Watching at The Afterword.
At time of writing our upload of Toyah: This Is Your Life is just about to hit 200k of unique viewers, with almost 15,000 in just the past week alone!! Pretty incredible stats!
Tomorrow – 06.06.2020 – is the 40th anniversary of the release of an iconic album from Toyah’s music career, The Blue Meaning. Incredibly ahead of its time, both musically and in its artwork/design/imagery. Check back tomorrow for our feature – which is an amalgamation of four of Dreamscape’s previous Blue Meaning articles reworked to create a comprehensive feature.
**Updated** A sprinkling of pure, escapist, fun during these troubling, uncertain times many of us are experiencing. Check out Dreamscape’s Toyah & Fripp: The Lockdown Films News Archive. Watch the films at The Official Toyah You Tube channel. (Screenshots © Toyah Willcox)
• Acapela: Toyah 18th July 2020 rescheduled to 28th January 2021: Following our recent communication via email and social media concerning the closure of the venue due to the recent Coronavirus precautions, I am delighted to inform you that we have agreed a new date for the above concert – Continue reading…
• Acapela: Toyah Willcox returns again to Acapela: Household name, pop icon, TV presenter, and stage/screen actress (Calamity Jane, Cabaret, Peter Pan, Jubilee, Quadrophenia) Toyah comes to Acapela in July with her Acoustic, Up Close & Personal show – Continue reading…
• Official Toyah: Gig Diary: Browse Toyah’s forthcoming tours, gigs and festivals – Continue reading…
• BBC Radio 2 / Sara Cox: Guilty Pleasures: Plus sixty minutes of great music in The Wower and Tracy Hulme from Bourne tells Sara about her First & Last – Diana Ross and Toyah – Continue to listen…
• Tatler: Society photographer Cecil Beaton’s Reddish House is for sale: Since Beaton’s death, the house has been owned by the former Countess of Chichester, Ursula Henderson, and musicians Robert Fripp and Toyah Willcox, who have claimed that it is haunted by Beaton’s ghost – Continue reading…
• BBC Radio 2 / Jools Holland: Toyah is Jools’ guest!: There are 11 days left to listen to Toyah guesting on Jools’ first BBC Radio 2 show – Continue to listen…
Toyah’s new June 2020 blog is available to read at toyahwillcox.com.
Andrew Eborn is joined by Toyah with special insight into her amazing life and career. Also including an exclusive announcement! Watch below.
