Dreamscape | The Toyah Willcox Fansite

This week seven years ago Toyah premiered her From Sheep Farming To Anthem UK Tour, playing the opening gig at The Cavern, Liverpool on 20th March 2011. The gigs received rave reviews and much praise, with Toyah playing songs not performed for decades and wearing her iconic outfits onstage for the first time in many years – Relive Toyah’s fantastic tour by visiting the News Archive, Gallery and read a great Review of the London concert.

Four rare radio interviews with Toyah; 1979 – 1982. Click below for the Downloads section.

1. Capital Radio: Mummy’s Weekly (1979): Fighting talk from Toyah! She also chats about being discovered, ‘Victims Of The Riddle’ and more. 2. Radio One: Rock On (1980): Toyah talks Shoestring, Glitter, the band’s influences, mayhem, ’Sheep Farming In Barnet’, ‘Neon Womb’, and future plans. 3. Radio Trent: (January 1981): Toyah, interviewed just before the release of the ‘Four From Toyah’ EP. Great interview with lots of interesting pre-mainstream fame chat. 4. Radio One: Rock On (May 1982): Toyah talks to, former ‘Smash Hits’ writer and eternal cynic, Mark Ellen about ‘The Changeling’, aliens, fairies, her ‘Brave New World’ image and much more.

• Thanks to Giddy Gavin (aka Logan 5) and Sean.

Taking a trip through the Dreamscape Archives… a rare interview uploaded to You Tube in 2011 (by sph476) with Toyah, looking utterly Minxtastic, from 1985.

Toyah is busy, busy, busy in her big birthday year, with numerous gigs, festivals and personal appearances. She played a 30-minute set at the 80’s Weekender – 48 Hour Party last week in Camber Sands alongside Chesney Hawkes, Tight Fit, Hazell Dean and a variety of tribute bands. Thanks to Brian for this great shot from the gig. Click below for the full/larger version. (Photo © Brian Marsh Photography)

“Soul deep!” – Next week there’s a repeat airing on BBC4 for the retro episode of Top Of The Pops with Toyah performing the euphoric Be Proud Be Loud (Be Heard)… Most of Toyah’s early Eighties TOTP appearances – both in the studio and on promo video – have been repeated over the last few months, see the rundown here.

Top Of The Pops: BBC4: Wednesday 21st March: 1am
21.10.1982. Peter Powell presents the weekly pop chart show, first broadcast in October 1982. Includes appearances from The Piranhas, Toyah, The Kids from Fame, Imagination, Kool and the Gang, Bauhaus, Spandau Ballet, Culture Club, Sharon Redd and Shakin’ Stevens.

2018 is a big deal – This year Toyah celebrates the landmark event of turning 60, on 18th May. Not only that, this year is also the 40th anniversary of Toyah first making music.

Ten years ago I had a blast counting down to and celebrating Toyah’s fantastic 50th and hope to share some celebratory posts in the build up to Toyah’s 60th in just over two month’s time. Toyah’s official website and social media spaces are also celebrating #Toyah60 with special content and Toyah memories, career achievements and highlights.

• Dreamscape is now in its 19th year of sharing Toyah news so we have a comprehensive archive to look back on and simultaneously celebrate Toyah hitting 60! Have a browse at our many features looking at Toyah’s flabbergasting career and stay tuned for more memories…

“Dive in, be rescued” – As previously posted, Toyah’s second solo album, Desire, is being released on limited edition translucent red vinyl as a Record Store Day exclusive on 21 April 2018. See lots more info on the forthcoming release at toyahwillcox.com…

“Jubilee is a wrap. Thanks to the entire team & all our audiences x“, Toyah tweeted. She also Instagrammed: “Goodnight LIZZIE. What an astonishing last show. Thank u all. It has been a privilege“. (Photo © Official Toyah)

• Browse a summary of many of the reviews for Jubilee at the Lyric at toyahwillcox.com. See all of Dreamscape’s London news on Jubilee here and the Manchester production here.

Toyah’s blog for March 2018 is available to read at toyahwillcox.com.

24 influential women who make you proud to be from the Midlands

A century after women first won the right to vote in the UK here’s a look at some of those who inspire us from Birmingham and the West Midlands

What have you done today to make you feel proud? Well reading this list could be a start. It’s International Women’s Day 2018 today and we wanted to acknowledge some of the influential Midlands women who inspire us the most.

Leading columnists, athletes, hugely successful songwriters, doctors, innovators, scientists and more. Our list intentionally misses out serving MPs and politicians – although many are deserving of praise.

Toyah Willcox: from Kings Heath, is a singer with a career spanning more than thirty years. Known for her shocking hair and individual style.

Willcox has enjoyed eight Top 40 singles, released over 20 albums, written two books, appeared in 40 stage plays and 10 films. She has also presented numerous television shows. Between 1977 and 1983 she fronted the band Toyah, before going solo. She has a star on the Kings Heath Walk of Fame.

• Continue reading at the Birmingham Mail. (Photo © Birmingham Mail)

Pointless Celebrities: Challenge: Sunday 18th March: 1pm
Series 6, Episode 14. Alexander Armstrong and Richard Osman present a special celebrity music edition of the quiz that rewards the answers that no-one else could think of. Featuring Mark King and Toyah Willcox, Carol Decker and Limahl, Dave Hill and Dave Bartram and Antony Costa and Scott Robinson. (Photo © BBC)

Only Artists: BBC Radio 4: Wednesday 7th March: 9am/9.30pm
Alice Lowe and Toyah Willcox. Series in which two artists discuss creative questions. Director and actor Alice Lowe, acclaimed for slasher film Prevenge, meets Toyah Willcox who by the age of 20 had played the National Theatre as well as starring in Derek Jarman’s film Jubilee. (Series 4)

• Listen live at bbc.co.uk or catch up later on BBC iPlayer.

Toyah’s 1987 studio album, the hugely underrated, Desire will be released on limited edition translucent red vinyl as a Record Store Day Exclusive on 21 April 2018 – Further info here. See Toyah, as QEI, with the vinyl here.

Neil McCormick’s Needle Time: Vintage TV: Thursday 15th March: 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.

NO FUTURE: Brendan Macdonald reviews Chris Goode’s stage version of Derek Jarman’s Jubilee

“It’s funny isn’t it? In 1977, someone shouting NO FUTURE sounded like the most extreme nihilistic punk. Forty years on, it’s a fact. It’s mainstream climate science.”

As Amyl Nitrate (played by Travis Alabanza) perceives, ‘NO FUTURE’ was once a rallying cry of the punk movement, not just a closing refrain to a Sex Pistols anthem. It spoke of a stark fatalism imbued with fury, frustration, and a deep distrust in the current status quo. Chris Goode’s adaptation of Derek Jarman’s 1978 film Jubilee toys with this articulation, hurtling the punk movement into a future that seemingly shouldn’t exist, to see how it survives.

Goode’s adaptation spars with Jarman’s film, keeping faithful to the central tenets of the piece while modernizing it to reflect the current age. It’s messy, chaotic, sex-fueled, and driven more by affect than narrative. Queen Elizabeth I, brilliantly played by one of the film’s original stars Toyah Willcox, travels to the present day with the help of Lucy Ellinson’s Ariel, and passively witnesses the countercultural energy that’s brewing beneath 21st century neoliberal consumerism.

• Continue reading at Exeunt Magazine. Read Exeunt Magazine’s review of Jubilee at Royal Exchange, Manchester, here.

Chris Goode’s riotous adaptation of Derek Jarman’s seminal film about anarchy in the UK is not for the faint hearted. Featuring simulated sex, unrestrained nudity and mindless acts of violence, this provocative stage version will undoubtedly divide audiences, just as Jarman did in 1978.

Toyah Willcox, who starred as the pyromaniac Mad in the film version, now plays Queen Elizabeth I observing the excesses of a group of friends sharing a squat in Brexit Britain.

Amyl Nitrate (an electrifying performance by Travis Alabanza) serves as our emcee for the evening. Sexual predator Crabs (Rose Wardlaw) lures unsuspecting men home where they often meet a brutal and untimely end, while Bod (Sophie Stone) is the murderous de facto leader of the gang, Ariel, an ethereal presence (Lucy Ellinson), links segments and time.

• Continue reading at the New Camden Journal. (Review by Lucy Popescu)

Snow, snow and, yup, more snow! Brrrr!! Welcome to March in the UK…

Toyah Willcox – My Vintage, which originally aired on ‘Vintage TV’ in March 2012, is repeated next month.

Toyah chose 12 songs, by bands and singers as diverse as Roxy Music, Echo & The Bunnymen, Iggy Pop, Kate Bush, Tears For Fears and The Cure, and discussed why each song was significant to her.

My Vintage: Vintage TV: Sunday 11th March: 5pm
My Vintage: Vintage TV: Thu 15th March: 10.30pm
Toyah Willcox. Toyah was a rebellious child, but the arrival of rock ‘n’ roll reinvented her life and gave her grounding. Here she shares with us the songs that brought her to where she is today.

• View all of Dreamscape’s previous My Vintage news here.

• Culture Whisper: From the royal box, the time-travelling Queen Elizabeth I (Toyah Willcox, who played pyromaniac teenager Mad in the the original film 40 years ago) lords over proceedings like a dutiful monarch at the Royal Variety Show – and make no mistake, Jubilee is as perfectly random as the Royal Variety. It wilfully defies all theatrical convention, addressing the audience and breaking the wall to provide a sneering commentary on its own construction – Continue reading at Culture Whisper…

• Boyz Magazine: However it is the presence of Toyah Willcox, an original cast member of the 1977 film, who plays Elizabeth I, that really gives this show weight. Her command of the role is extraordinary and as the show draws to a close its fitting that one of her own songs closes the proceedings. Crazy stuff! – Continue reading at Boyz Magazine…

• Essential Surrey: This provocative and theatrical show reinvents Jarman’s Jubilee for the present day, whilst clearly still clinging onto the punk subculture it was based on. Characterised by anti-establishment views and general anarchy, it is every bit as loud and aggressive as you would expect. The play opens in the same manner as the film with Queen Elizabeth I, starring original cast member Toyah Willcox, time travelling forward into a bleak and destitute contemporary Britain – Continue reading at Essential Surrey…

• Stage Review: In the film Toyah Willcox played angry rebel, Mad. Now the 59-year-old punk princess has been elevated to Queen Elizabeth I and she spends most of the production in the theatre’s royal box, watching the action on stage, occasionally breaking into monologues. The Queen is given a vision of the future, and its dystopian desolation initially fills her with pain, before she finds herself sympathising with the group’s radical social commentary – Continue reading at Stage Review…

• A Younger Theatre: Jubilee is superb in its metatheacricality, realising the elements of stagecraft present within Jarman’s film. The script cleverly observes the forty years of cultural change since ’77 and is playful in its interaction with members of the audience. It is absurd, with a peculiar, ravenous kind of beauty and it will leave you craving a cigarette lit by a blaze fiercer than hell on earth – Continue reading at A Younger Theatre…

• The Upcoming: Chris Goode’s stage adaptation of Derek Jarman and James Whaley’s cult classic punk film, Jubilee (1978), can only be described as a wild ride. Semi-plotless, kinky and violent, Jubilee the play is a vintage punk romp amended to include a far more diverse cast, and to rail against today’s troubling political climate, both at home and abroad. Indeed, it seems only natural to apply that old punk rage to 2018, and the violent dystopia that we’re presented with is often all too believable – Continue reading at The Upcoming…

The one lesson I’ve learned from life: Toyah Willcox on how you can have the same waist at 60 as you did when you were 23!

Toyah Willcox, 59, shot to fame in the Seventies as a punk singer and actress / She revealed how she spent the past three months overhauling her lifestyle / She says a tailored diet helped her lose weight and improved her energy levels

This year I turn 60, which seems astonishing to me. Yet I’ve never been much of a conformist and I see no reason to become a little old lady. I’ve realised each decade has its own purpose and, in anticipation of my seventh, I’ve spent the past three months overhauling my lifestyle.

Today I have the same waist measurement I had at 23. My energy levels are through the roof, which is good because I’m still playing festivals and I’m known for the energy of my performance. This time last year I felt very different. I was physically and mentally sluggish. I was neither as bright nor as quick as I used to be and I was unhappy with my body shape. But I don’t think it’s inevitable everything should thicken and sag, and I wasn’t willing to watch it happen.

So my husband and I decided to take control of the way we were ageing. We went to the Wildmoor Spa in Stratford to see a Harley Street specialist in DNA. We had ours closely analysed for dietary intolerances and genetic traits that influence the way we process food. Results in, we were given tailored diets to follow. It’s been a major commitment of both money and willpower. I’ve cut out wheat, dairy and all processed foods, but my husband has different rules, so though we cook together, we have different meals. At first, I lost weight because I couldn’t find much to eat, especially on restaurant menus. And I missed cake.

• Continue reading at the Daily Mail. (Photo © Clark Enwell/BackGrid)

Watch Friday night’s mammoth three-hour 30th Anniversary edition of The Old Grey Whistle Test at BBC iPlayer. A fantastic retrospective programme packed with great music, interviews and memories – Catch Toyah’s appearance, alongside Chris Difford, at approximately 2hrs 22m in.