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Read Toyah’s Blog for November 2017 at toyahwillcox.com.

Another five star review of Jubilee at Royal Exchange, Manchester – This one by Joe Flynn at North West End.

On the 40th year anniversary of the iconic punk film the Royal Exchange wrench Jubilee squealing and with a knife to its throat into 2017. Exploring political unrest, social inequality via themes of race, ability, sex, gender and class to name but a few, throw in a failed justice system and Jubilee highlights how our modern world has learnt no lessons from history and the real references to today’s world are tragically abundant.

The story is of a murderous subculture gang taking back control of their own desires and delivering their very own flavour of justice. They are surveyed by original Jubilee cast member and punk girl icon Toyah Willcox, playing a time-travelling Queen Elizabeth who is serenely guided by an angel to witness their turmoil and ultimate plight of selling-out. Willcox’s presence onstage was a comforting link to the bygone anarchy of the 70’s and 80’s but didn’t really feel like a crutch; Chris Goode’s adaptation is true to the original but still painfully relevant to 2017.

• Continue reading at North West End.

“Within the fabric of the set….my hidden message to Derek Jarman“. (Photo © Toyah Willcox)

“Jubilee, Royal Exchange, Manchester — a magnificently theatrical punk apocalypse“.

Financial Times (Subscription required to read online)

Jubilee is a riot. From the slogans spray-painted on to plywood surrounding the Royal Exchange’s in-the-round space to the chaotic way the cast commandeer the stage, it is obvious from the start that this is no ordinary night at the theatre.

An adaption of Derek Jarman’s punk film from the 1970s, Jubilee revolves around Amyl Nitrate (Travis Alabanza) and her loose collective of societal outcasts. As Amyl, Alabanza is a revelation – her heartfelt, angry, intelligent monologues are highlights of the show and I have never witnessed someone engage an audience more skilfully.

Forty years on from starring as Mad in the film, Toyah Willcox plays Elizabeth I. She spends most of the time presiding over the production from a throne on the first gallery with very little to say, but the moments when she does speak allow for welcome periods of calm – something you won’t find anywhere else in the show.

• Continue reading at Upstaged Manchester.

It’s always wonderful to see Toyah Willcox on stage. Often remembered solely for her pop career, Toyah is also an actress. In 1977 she filmed Jubilee, Derek Jarman’s brutal meditation on the state of a Britain that was being soaked in royalist propaganda to mark 25 years of Elizabeth II’s reign. Toyah played an orange-haired pyromaniac called Mad. In Chris Goode’s new stage adaptation and updating of Jarman’s film, she plays Elizabeth I.

The forty year in between has seen the world transformed and the sometimes progressive, sometimes violently anarchic world of punk has been utterly transcended. Reviving punk for now and updating what many regard a seminal cult classic was always going to be an enormous challenge. Goode takes it on bravely but perhaps not boldly enough.

• Continue reading at Attitude.

Jubilee review – rude and raucous return for Jarman’s punk pageant

Chris Goode directs Toyah Willcox in a wild reimagining of Derek Jarman’s film about a time-travelling queen and a generation with no future

‘Welcome to Jubilee,” says Amyl Nitrate near the start of Chris Goode’s reimagining of Derek Jarman’s 1978 punk movie. The straight-talking Amyl, played on stage by the mesmerising transgender performer Travis Alabanza, tells us what to expect: “An iconic film most of you have never heard of, adapted by an Oxbridge twat for a dying medium, spoiled by millennials, ruined by diversity, and constantly threatening to go interactive.”   That just about sums it up, and if you go with the flow you will be taken on a wild theatrical experience that knows exactly what it is doing, even at its most cracked, rude and raucous. This is smart work, spikily and lovingly performed.

Toyah Willcox, who starred in Jarman’s original film, sounds cheekily like Judi Dench in the role of Queen Elizabeth I, presiding over a day trip to the future conjured by court astrologer Dr Dee (Harold Finley).

• Continue reading at The Guardian.

On 4 June 1976 at Manchester’s Lesser Free Trade Hall, the Sex Pistols played a gig voted (along with Woodstock and Live Aid) as one of the most influential of all time; thousands claim to have been in the 150-capacity venue, which was less than a third full, but some of those who were went on to form massively influential bands such as Buzzcocks, The Smiths, The Fall and Joy Division / New Order, not to mention Factory Records and The Haçienda.

A year later, the Queen had her Silver Jubilee in the year Never Mind The Bollocks was released (“God save the Queen / The fascist regime”), then in 1978 punk had its own Jubilee in the form of Derek Jarman’s film of that name, starring some major punk and alternative music figures including Toyah, Adam Ant, Siouxsie Sioux, Richard O’Brien, Little Nell, Jordan and Lindsay Kemp.

Toyah Willcox returns to the world of Jubilee but this time as Queen Elizabeth I, whose magician John Dee (Harold Finley) conjures up the spirit Ariel (Lucy Ellinson) – it gets quite Shakespearean in a few places – to transport her forwards in time, not to the broken, depressed streets of the 1970s but straight to the squat of Amyl Nitrate and her fellow residents, now translated into the 21st century.

• Continue reading at British Theatre Guide.

Toyah Willcox stars in Chris Goode’s 40th anniversary production

There is an innate theatricality to Derek Jarman’s cult film. A punk classic celebrating its 40th anniversary next year, Jubilee zaps Queen Elizabeth I into a destitute contemporary Britain. Buckingham Palace has been sold off to a music label and turned into recording studios. The rest of the country has been left to rot and, in the wastelands, anarchic girl gangs and queer artists run riot, shagging and killing anything in sight. They could be the sisters of Anthony Burgess’ droogs – just better dressed.

Designer Chloe Lamford turns the whole Royal Exchange into their squat. Union Jacks are strewn from the balconies. Graffiti is scrawled all over the walls so that political slogans and swearwords fight for space.

• Continue reading at What’s On Stage.

Nihilism, nudity, no future: Derek Jarman’s bleak Britain comes pungently to the stage – Jubilee, Royal Exchange, Manchester, review

How do you take a defining film from the punk era and reconceive it for the stage, 40 years on, when the V-flicking message of punk was “no future”?

Derek Jarman’s 1978 vision of Britannia sinking below the waves during the flag-waving year of the Silver Jubilee revelled in images of dystopian collapse: post-industrial wastelands, dismal interiors that no yet-to-be-conceived TV makeover programme could spruce up, random acts of senseless violence. It was Beckett’s Endgame meets A Clockwork Orange, with melancholy traces of Shakespeare – and it was designed to look like the end of the world was nigh.

Yet here we now are, and many of the gobbing youths of yesteryear turned out fine, some of them doing very nicely indeed thanks to the Thatcher revolution (Malcolm McLaren, “godfather” of punk, at least had the grace and courage to acknowledge that, recalling a “failed, miserable country” before her arrival).

• Continue reading at The Telegraph.

Buried secrets have a way of coming back to bite people – even if the secrets they’re trying to protect are not their own. That’s the idea behind Mitu Misra’s new thriller, Lies We Tell, which stars Gabriel Byrne and Harvey Keitel. We have an exclusive look at the first trailer for the film, along with its UK quad poster.

When his billionaire boss Demi (Keitel) dies, chauffeur Donald (Byrne) is given one final job – to wipe out any evidence of Demi’s relationship with his mistress, the enigmatic and beautiful Amber (Sibylla Deen). Donald’s task soon unravels when Amber’s life is threatened, and he finds himself her reluctant protector. Unwittingly drawn into a dangerous urban underworld, he encounters dark, harrowing practices, and a sinister underworld figure who will test him to his very limits…

Positioning itself in the tradition of the original Get Carter and Mike Figgis’ Stormy Monday, the film is based on a story by Misra, with the script coming from Ewen Glass and Andy McDermott. With Mark Addy, Gina McKee and Toyah Willcox also in the film, Lies We Tell will be in UK and US cinemas on 2 February.

• Continue reading at Empire. Browse our Lies We Tell news.

This week’s best theatre shows: Our critics’ picks (November 7)

Jubilee – Royal Exchange, Manchester

Chris Goode’s new stage adaptation of Derek Jarman’s iconic chronicle of the 1970s punk scene opens in Manchester on November 7. Promising to be a remix for a new generation it stars Toyah Willcox, who also appeared in the original.

• Continue reading at The Stage.

The final preview of Jubilee took place at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester last night. View production shots of Toyah as Queen Elizabeth I at Twitter and Instagram. Click below to book tickets. (Photo © Johan Persson)

More mid-November Sky Arts airdates for the classic episode of Tales Of The Unexpected, ‘Blue Marigold’, starring Toyah in the lead role.

Tales Of The Unexpected: Sky Arts: Monday 13th November: 1.30pm
Tales Of The Unexpected: Sky Arts: Tuesday 14th November: 1.30am/9.30am
Tales Of The Unexpected: Sky Arts: Saturday 18th November: 8.30am
Blue Marigold. Series 5, Episode 1. Dropped by her agency for her diva-like behaviour, supermodel Marigold’s mental health deteriorates. Years later, she plots a comeback. Director: Giles Foster. Starring: Toyah Willcox, Ralph Bates, Sharon Duce, Helen Fraser, Billy Hamon, Edward Jewesbury.

• View a larger version of the cover by clicking above. Scans of the other pages and interview are here, here and here. (Thanks to Paul Lomas for the scans)

15.11.2017. In Conversation: Toyah Willcox with Dave Haslam at Royal Exchange.

The Royal Exchange is currently running a stage adaptation of Derek Jarman’s film, Jubilee (read our preview). And later this month, fans can spend an evening with Toyah Willcox, one of the stars of the play (and indeed the original film). She will be talking to the journalist and author Dave Haslam. They won’t be short of things to discuss, as Toyah has had a long, storied career not only as an actor, but also as a musician and writer. She first broke through in the late seventies as a punk pioneer. Around the same time, she starred in both Quadrophenia and another Jarman film, The Tempest. Over the years, she has appeared many more movies, TV shows AND released 24 albums. Recently, she wrote a book detailing her experiences with plastic surgery. Despite all this, she’s still best known to some as the narrator of Teletubbies.

• Continue reading at Manchester Wire.

Toyah guested on BBC Radio 4’s PM programme on Thursday afternoon, discussing Jubilee at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester (and Teletubbies) with Colin Paterson.

• The interview begins at around 46 minutes into the show and runs for approximately five minutes, including a very short play of It’s A Mystery. Listen at BBC iPlayer Radio.

• West End Theatre: Toyah Willcox to star in stage adaptation of punk film Jubilee: Legendary punk warrior and actress Toyah Willcox will star in a stage adaption of Derek Jarman’s seminal punk film Jubilee. Forty years after Jarman’s film captured punk at its giddy height, the new stage adaption remixes it for the social and political turmoil of 2017 – Continue reading…

• Creative Tourist: Unmissable things to do in Manchester and the North: Jubilee at the Royal Exchange – It’s 40 years since the heyday of the punk movement. An anarchic expression of contempt for society’s stagnation, it produced some of the most interesting (and angriest) music of the ‘70s, much of which has stood the test of time. Now the Royal Exchange is turning one of the iconic films of the era – Jubilee – into a theatre piece, complete with spikey punk soundtrack – Continue reading…

• The Telegraph: Cast of play rebels over reference to Myra Hindley as a ‘hero’, forcing director to delete lines: Toyah Willcox, who was in the film and is now in the play, said that using the lines in the city where Hindley and Ian Brady operated would have “undermined the whole play” – Continue reading…

• BBC News: Manchester theatre cuts Myra Hindley hero-worship lines: A new play in Manchester has cut lines about Moors Murderer Myra Hindley being “a true artist” and a “hero” for fear of offending the audience. The 1978 punk film Jubilee has been adapted for the Royal Exchange theatre – Continue reading…

• The Guardian: Don’t condemn sound judgment as PC behaviour: A stage production of Derek Jarman’s 1978 film, Jubilee, has had lines removed where a character expresses admiration for Myra Hindley… Toyah Willcox, who was in the film, and now appears in the play, was against retaining the lines and made the point that Jarman would have originally included them for shock value – Continue reading…

Maigret: ITV Encore: Thursday 16th November: 12.05pm
Maigret: ITV Encore: Friday 17th November: 5am
Maigret and the Hotel Majestic. Crime series featuring Georges Simenon’s celebrated Parisian detective. Maigret is called to the scene when a beautiful woman is found dead in the basement of the Hotel Majestic with a gun in her handbag. The Chief Inspector’s investigations initially centre around the staff at the hotel – until he discovers that the woman’s husband booked a trip to Rome that he never made. Starring: Michael Gambon, Geoffrey Hutchings, Michael Shannon, Toyah Willcox (1993).

Toyah Willcox: ‘I’d rather have been a 70s punk than be young today’

After playing a member of the anarchic and murderous girl gang in the 1978 punk film Jubilee, actress and singer Toyah Willcox is revisiting the story in its first stage version. Is she still punk, 40 years on?

“I can’t live in a world of dullards,” Toyah says. “So I think on that level, I’m definitely punk.”

Toyah, who forged an acting career while also making her name as a pop star, is still rebelling against the expectations of society – in her own way. “For me, it’s non-conformist,” she says. “I’m just not interested in the norm. The only example I can give you is I can’t go to a hairdresser and talk about holidays. I just don’t live in that world. It’s not me.”

Being punk means something different in 2017 compared with 1977. But the world’s a different place now, and Toyah is almost 60.

• Continue reading at BBC News.

A well-known local singer performed in front of a capacity crowd at the Music at Stow Festival.

Toyah Willcox, who has amassed thirteen top 40 singles, acted in fifteen feature films and presented such diverse television programmes as The Good Sex Guide and Songs Of Praise song at St Edward’s Church.

The star, who lives in Pershore, with her rock-star husband Robert Fripp of King Crimson fame, presented the evening in the form of a trip down memory lane, illustrated with songs, film clips, photos and some very entertaining name-dropping from her wide-ranging career.

• Continue reading at the Cotswold Journal.

“1st night has arrived. Soooooo excited“. Jubilee opened at the Royal Exchange Theatre last night. Click below to view the full version of the photo Toyah tweeted. (Photo © Toyah Willcox)