Toyah’s star on the King’s Heath Walk Of Fame, in York Road, has been laid. Congratulations to Toyah. There will eventually be at least 20 stars. View the full star by clicking below.
Steve Wright’s interview with Toyah airs today on his BBC Radio 2 show. It was pre-recorded at the beginning of last week.
Steve Wright In the Afternoon: BBC Radio 2
Wednesday 20th March: 2.00pm
Steve chats to comic Marcus Brigstocke, singer Toyah Willcox and Stones drummer Charlie Watts. Plus, more fascinating Factoids to impress your friends and family with, the very latest lifestyle and entertainment news, half an hour of Non-Stop Oldies and a load of great music to see you through the afternoon.
The programme can be listened to live online at the ‘BBC Radio 2’ website. The show will be available to listen to at BBC iPlayer after it airs. Toyah’s interview may also be included on Steve Wright’s Big Guest’s Podcast: Daily highlights from Steve Wright’s afternoon show on BBC Radio 2. Featuring chat with top showbiz guests. The podcasts are updated daily and available for seven days.
• A rare contact sheet of photos, taken at the Nordoff-Robins Musical Therapy lunch in 1983, is currently up for auction at ebay. Toyah is included in some of the photos.
• The Wrath Of Blog: Review #595: ‘Jubilee’ (1978): One particular group, consisting of, amongst others, Amyl Nitrate (Jordan), Mad (Toyah Willcox), Bod (Runacre in a dual role), Crabs (Nell Campbell) and Chaos (Hermine Demoriane), tend to spend their time smashing cars, having sex, participating in the odd murder, and generally giving the two-finger salute to anything resembling conformity.
• This Blackmore Vale: Have a girls’ night out with Toyah Willcox at Poole Lighthouse: Rock star and actress Toyah Willcox heads the cast of Hormonal Housewives at Poole Lighthouse next Thursday, 28th March.
• Noel’s House Party: A clip from the 1990’s of Toyah guesting, and being gunged, on Noel’s House Party, alongside John Stapleton and Nick Owen.
• Jelly: Troubador, Wizard, Queen and Machine – The band launch their debut album on 11th May at the “Punk ‘N’ Roll Rendez Vous” at The Unicorn in Camden.
A full transcript of the episode of Ramblings Toyah guested on, at the end of last month, is now available for your reading pleasure at The Toyah Willcox Interview Archive.
The interview was recorded at Croome Park, Worcestershire in January and aired on ‘BBC Radio 4’ on 28th February. It’s still available to download as a podcast from the BBC’s Podcast & Downloads page.
Read all of Dreamscape’s news on Ramblings here.
Pop icon Toyah Willcox is to star in the latest production of Hormonal Housewives, which will arrive at The Castle in Wellingborough on Tuesday.
A spokesman said: “Charismatic, outspoken and impossible to categorise, Toyah will be bringing the laughs to Wellingborough this spring.
“Ideal for a girls’ night out, Hormonal Housewives is guaranteed to be a hilariously funny evening.”
• Continue reading at the Northampton Chronicle & Echo.
The first Gallery update for a while. Great photos of Toyah from 1994 on the Leap 2 Dream UK Tour. These were taken at The Fridge, Brixton in April of that year. Click below to view more at Dreamscape’s Gallery. (Thanks to Mark Evans)
• There’s a previously unseen photo of Toyah from the Hormonal Housewives session (the one with the wine) at the Poole Lighthouse website. The show plays there on 28th March.
• The Lighthouse also have a special offer: Come early and join us at Lighthouse for a ‘Girls Night Out’ event before the show. We will have cocktails, cupcakes and FREE beauty treatments all available before the show. See their Facebook page for more info.
• Great post about Hormonal Housewives by LDE Creative who saw the show at the Victoria Theatre, Halifax last week.
• Toyah’s Hormonal Housewives interview on ‘BBC Three Counties Radio’ is available at BBC iPlayer until Friday (interview begins 3hrs 7m into the programme).
• There’s also a full transcript of the interview at The Toyah Willcox Interview Archive.
• This week the Hormonal Housewives play the New Victoria Theatre, Woking; The Castle, Wellingborough; Leeds City Varieties; Beck Theatre, Hayes; Hawth Theatre, Crawley and the Carmarthen Lyric. Click the links for full ticket info.
An imaginary Toyah collection, or a real Toyah playlist. You decide… Yes it’s been pointed out that the song the collection takes its name from isn’t included… Click to zoom!
Jelly, the band fronted by former Toyah drummer Stevie Bray, have just launched their new website.
There’s a band bio, pix, store, videos, tracks and dates. The band have a number of live dates coming up in the next couple of months.
• Visit the website. Check out all of Dreamscape’s Jelly news here.
The March 17-30 1983 issue of ‘Smash Hits’ has been uploaded to the Smash Hits Archive, exactly 30 years ago to the day it was originally published.
The magazine, with Tracie Young and Paul Weller on the cover, includes a “Bitz” news clipping with the first mention of Toyah appearing in Trafford Tanzi.
Poll-winning warbler and sometime actress, your very own Ms Toyah Willcox, is due to begin treading the boards of the Mermaid Theatre, London from some time in late March. She’ll be taking over the title role in Trafford Tanzi, a very successful feminist musical that takes the form of a wrestling match. Rehearsals for the new cast have just been started, and they sound somewhat strenuous! The reason that there’s no precise opening date is because the show can’t go on until they’re all “in shape”.
Meanwhile, over in New York, Debie Harry is getting in shape to take the same role in a Broadway production of the same play! All this theatrical activity means, of course, that meantime there won’t be many records from either of this pair.
• Continue reading at the Smash Hits Archive.
• Toyah makes her first live music appearance of 2013 today, at the ‘Here and Now: The Very Best Of The 80s’ Weekender in Bognor Regis. Also playing over the weekend are Midge Ure, Hazel O’Connor, Paul Young, Curiosity Killed The Cat and many others. Stay updated by following ‘Here and Now’ at Twitter.
• BBC Radio Three Counties: Toyah’s interview from Roberto Perrone’s show yesterday is now available to listen to at BBC iPlayer. This is a mammoth four-hour show. Toyah’s interview begins at approximately 3hrs 7m into the programme and runs for around six minutes. She talks movies, Hormonal Housewives and more. Listen here.
• Toyah was played on Alex Lester’s ‘BBC Radio 2’ show, early Friday morning. ‘Thunder In The Mountains’ was included on his programme playlist in the “Listener’s Library” strand, requested by Sam Spam from Birmingham. Sam said ” There’s not enough Toyah on the radio. Eat your heart out Lady Gaga, Toyah did it all first”. The full show is available to listen to here. Alex also posted the TITM single cover on his Facebook page.
• Theatre in Wales: Hormonal Housewives at the New Theatre, Cardiff: Following their hugely successful 2012 tour, the irrepressible Hormonal Housewives are back at the New Theatre, Cardiff from Thursday 4 – Friday 5 April. Having caused mayhem and mania on their last visit, Toyah Willcox leads the girls in this side-splitting evening.
• Gloucestershire County Council: Council Staff Climb Mountain for Comic Relief: All council employees have been asked to release their inner Adam Ant, Boy George or Toyah Willcox and dress in 80s fancy dress on Thursday 14th March.
• Toyah’s travel woes from Monday were even reported on by the RAC.
Toyah is guesting this evening on Roberto Perrone’s show on BBC Three Counties Radio.
She is scheduled to be interviewed at around 6.10pm. Listen online to the programme here.
(Thanks to Hormonal Housewives at Facebook for the info)
The second poll of Slicing Up Eyeballs’ Best of the ’80s albums is now open: Part 2: Vote for your top albums of 1981. There are 125 albums to choose from, and this time a Toyah album is included: ‘Anthem’ of course.
Slicing Up Eyeballs say: Our year-long Best of the ’80s feature continues this month as we turn to 1981, and once again ask Slicing Up Eyeballs’ readers to weigh in on their favorite albums of that year in our ongoing quest to rank the releases of each year of the decade over the course of 2013, concluding, come December, with a poll to determine the best of the ’80s.
It’s a simple process: We’ve assembled a list of 125 albums released in 1981, and you’re welcome to vote for up to 10 of them — or write in any title(s) you wish that we didn’t include.
Voting will be open through 5 p.m. EDT March 22, and results will be posted the first week of April — at which time we’ll launch the 1982 poll and take it from there.
Organisers of a popular summer music festival are drawing up exciting plans to attract even more families from Worcester and across the county.
Upton Music Festival returns to the town from August 23 to 25 with a host of big acts including 80s Brit pop sensation Bucks Fizz, local superstar Toyah Willcox and former chart toppers Slade.
New to the festival this year will be a variety tent packed with family entertainment as well as a Top of the Pops tent where DJs including former Fun House presenter Pat Sharp will get people of all ages filling the dance floor.
• Continue reading at the Worcester Standard.
It’s Slade: BBC Four: Saturday 23rd March: 11.55pm
Top pop documentary, narrated by Radio One’s Mark Radcliffe, about one of Britain’s greatest and best-loved bands. Slade scored six number ones in the 70s, a feat rivalled only by Abba. Apart from Noddy and his bandmates – Dave Hill, Jim Lea and Don Powell – the cast here also includes Noel Gallagher of Oasis (who covered Cum On Feel the Noize), Status Quo, Toyah Willcox, Suzi Quatro and Ozzy Osbourne.
The revised cover art for the 2013 reprint of Toyah’s ‘In The Court Of The Crimson Queen’ album. The Official Toyah website will be announcing details on how to order the CD soon.
As the label on the cover of the re-print of ‘In The Court Of The Crimson Queen’, included in the first Breaking Through newsletter a couple of weeks ago, suggested ‘Sensational’ by Toyah is played (not performed) in Hormonal Housewives.
The tour continues tonight at Southport Theatre and tomorrow at the Victoria Theatre, Halifax.
• Unless there’s something we aren’t privvy to yet it looks like yesterday’s Evening Standard got a little confused. I think we can categorically confirm that Rizzle Kicks are not, and never have been, Toyah’s band :) Click on the clipping to zoom. (Thanks to Larwi)
• This did cause much merriment last night on Twitter. One tweet in particular I did find slightly amusing: “Whilst stuck on the m’way all night, Cheryl Baker, Toyah and Rizzlekicks have formed a 2 girl 2 boy band. Bucks Fizzlekicks“.
• You are probably all very bored with hearing/reading about the weather/traffic by now, but here are just a few more reports anyway (when did Dreamscape ever subscribe to the “less is more” notion?): Celebrity Hollywood Gossip: Toyah Willcox Among Stars Caught Up In Snow Hell, another article from the Mirror: Going Snowhere: Pop stars Rizzle Kicks, Cheryl Baker and Toyah Willcox among hundreds stranded in cars overnight, Scotsman: Cold Snap To Last Most Of Week: Toyah Willcox and hip-hop duo Rizzle Kicks also posted details of their battles through snow-covered roads.
Richard Kay quotes Toyah’s most recent blog, and the health issues she mentions, in his latest Daily Mail column.
It is a debilitating illness that she likens to a hammer blow every 15 minutes to her knees, back, shoulders and hips. This is how singer and actress Toyah Willcox describes the ‘peculiar virus’ she’s been suffering for the past three months.
Her symptoms have been so painful that she has had to undergo daily physiotherapy at a sports injury centre. But despite her illness, she has just started a nationwide tour of a play, Hormonal Housewives.
• Continue reading at the Daily Mail.
Celebrity Fantasy Homes: BBC Lifestyle
Thu 14th Mar: 6.15am/7.30pm/Fri 15th Mar: 2.15am
Series 2, Episode 2. Toyah Willcox is looking for her fantasy home in a dream location. The original punk girl has set her heart on moving to Richmond.
Airing on BBC Lifestyle Nordic and BBC Lifestyle Middle East, covering dozens of countries including Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Algeria, Egypt, Kuwait, Iran, Morocco and many others. View further info on BBC Lifestyle.
More opportunities later this month to catch Toyah’s 1982 episode of Tales Of The Unexpected.
Tales Of The Unexpected: Sky Arts 2: Tuesday 26th March: 1.20/5.40pm
Tales Of The Unexpected: Sky Arts 2: Wednesday 27th March: 5.15am
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.
