Dreamscape | The Toyah Willcox Fansite

Toyah being presented with her star, by Bev Bevan of ELO, at the King’s Heath ‘Walk Of Fame’ ceremony this morning.

Robert Fripp unveiled Toyah’s star, on York Road in the town, just before Midday. Initial reports from those who attended are that it was a great morning.

The celebrations continue this evening with a two-set, two-hour, career-spanning homecoming gig at the Hare & Hounds. PAC Photography, who were also at this morning’s event, will be photographing each person at the gig. These will be made into a very special mosaic which will be presented to Toyah as a momento of the concert.

• View the full photo of Toyah & Bev. (Photo © King’s Heath Bid). Catch up on all of our ‘Walk Of Fame’ news.

Well deserved. Wishing Toyah a wonderful day!

Toyah’s official website reported during the week that Toyah is to be honoured by her hometown next month.

TOYAH HONOURED AS FIRST STAR IN KING’S HEATH WALK OF FAME

A new Walk of Fame will launch this summer celebrating King’s Heath’s amazing musical and comedy heritage. King’s Heath-born Toyah will be the first star to be inducted on the Birmingham Walk of Fame with the official unveiling taking place in early July. We will bring you further details on this exciting project in the coming weeks.

• News Source: toyahwillcox.com | View more info on King’s Heath ‘Walk Of Fame’.

It’s the Diamond Jubilee Bank Holiday Weekend…

• Toyah guests on Saturday Cookbook on ITV1 tomorrow morning in a special edition celebrating the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee:

Saturday Cookbook: ITV1: Saturday 2nd June: 8.25am
Nadia Sawalha and Mark Sargeant are joined by chef Phil Vickery and Toyah Willcox to celebrate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.

• On Sunday Toyah plays Birmingham Pride, the UK’s largest LGBT two-day festival, being held on Saturday 2nd and Sunday 3rd June, or as the Brum Pride website says “The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Bank Holiday Weekend”. Toyah appears at Bar Eden on Sunday.

• No doubt Derek Jarman’s Jubilee will be aired and watched in numerous places over the next few days: The two confirmed showings in the UK are at The ICA (6th June) and Nottingham Contemporary Arts Centre (5th June).

• Capital Celluloid 2012 – Day 158: Wed June 6: Jubilee (Jarman, 1978): ICA Cinema, 8.30pm: No more appropriate film could screen in Diamond Jubilee week.

• Gay Times: Derek Jarman’s Jubilee: With the Queen’s Jubilee bank holiday creeping closer and close and your schedules are getting tighter and tighter, we thought that now would be an opportune time to remind you of another Jubilee. In 1977 influential gay director Derek Jarman filmed a little punk gem of a film.

• Topman Generation: With the Golden Jubilee around the corner we recall Derek Jarman’s classic punk film. (Membership required)

• To Do List: To Jubilee Or Not To Jubilee? That Is The Question: A guide to ignoring/enjoying the Jubilee: Watch Derek Jarman’s cult punk classic Jubilee at the ICA | Wednesday 6th June at 2030.

• Whats on TV: Include a clip from Jubilee (“My Love Is Like A Red Red Rose”) in their latest “Whats on You Tube” feature.

Jubilee will show at The ICA next week, in their “Artists’ Film Club”, coinciding with the Diamond Jubilee…

Derek Jarman’s 1978 feature-length classic Jubilee is the focus of the special Artists’ Film Club. A 35mm print of Jubilee will be screened alongside a new transfer of the 8mm Jordan’s Dance (1977), a short which would later be incorporated, in part, in Jubilee. Coinciding with the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, the screening will also be accompanied by a panel discussion including actress Jenny Runacre (Jubilee’s Queen Elizabeth I and Bod), producer and long-time collaborator James Mackay and others.

Jubilee is a dystopian tale of time-travel and punk, set in 1970s London. Queen Elizabeth I (Jenny Runacre) travels forward in time to find Queen Elizabeth II dead and London in disarray; she encounters a cast of numerous characters including Amyl Nitrite (Jordan), Bod (Jenny Runacre), Chaos (Hermine Demoriane), Crabs (Nell Campbell), and Mad (Toyah Willcox).

Institute Of Contemporary Arts: Wed 6th June 2012, 8.30pm | £5/Free to ICA Members.

Derek Jarman’s 1979 film The Tempest, with Toyah as Miranda, will be part of a study day, focusing on Shakespeare on film, at The British Museum later this year. This role gained Toyah a nomination for Best Newcomer at The Evening Standard Film Awards in 1980.

Tony Howard, University of Warwick, introduces extracts from Macbeth films made in Britain, Madagascar, Japan, Australia, Brazil and the USA, exploring how they have mapped the play’s politics, psychology and ethics. The afternoon session will place Derek Jarman’s 1979 reimagining of The Tempest in the context of other film adaptations. Producer Don Boyd and actor David Meyer will relate their experiences of Jarman’s version.

Filming Shakespeare’s Magic
Saturday 17 November 2012, 10.30–16.30
Stevenson Lecture Theatre, TBM, London

To mark what would have been director Derek Jarman’s 70th birthday, Nottingham Contemporary Arts Centre are showing Jubilee on 5th June at The Space.

Derek Jarman Jubilee (1978): Honouring the name behind the Jarman Award in what would have been his 70th year we are screening a film that many regard as Derek Jarman’s first masterpiece. In Jubilee, Queen Elizabeth I is transported to a bleak, broken Britain – where violence and anarchy reign and Buckingham Palace is a recording studio for punk musicians. Serving to upset and unnerve the conventional cinemagoer, Jubilee defines the confrontational abandon of punk cinema.

• View further info here and here.

Toyah has been confirmed as one of the artists participating in ‘The Marc Bolan 35th Memorial Concert’, taking place at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire on Saturday 15th September 2012.

Other artists confirmed, so far, are Boy George, Steve Harley, Glen Matlock, Alvin Stardust, Rick Wakeman, Linda Lewis, Andy Ellison, and T.Rextasy. All proceeds from the concert are going to the PRS (Performing Right Society) Charity, for the music members benevolent fund.

Tickets go on sale from 16th April. Stay updated on the concert at the Facebook Event page.

NB: TOYAH IS NO LONGER APPEARING AT THIS EVENT

‘She-Bop-A-Lula’, the photo exhibition in aid of Breakthrough Breast Cancer Charity, opened at the Strand Gallery, London on the 7th March.

The exhibition features over 60 pictures of some of the most successful and creative women singers from the last six decades. The pictures, all taken by women photographers, are a mix of candid and intimate backstage scenes, sensitive and stylised portraits, through to the excitement and raw power of live performance.

It’s highly likely that the photograph of Toyah and Jenny Runacre, from 1977, by Caroline Coon is included in the exhibition. View further info on ‘She-Bop-A-Lula’ here. There are also recent online press articles on the exhibition by The Guardian, The Independent and NME.

Toyah played ‘The Magical Faerie Festival’ last April in Canterbury. An interview from then has just been uploaded to ‘You Tube’. Toyah talks punk, steampunk, acting, Canterbury and fairy wings. Click below to view.

This black-tie event promises a fabulous night out including reception drinks, a delicious three course dinner and superb entertainment including the fantastic Toyah Willcox to get you dancing the night away.

Join us on Saturday 19 May 2012 for The Stroke Association’s 20th Anniversary Ball at Radisson Blu Hotel in the beautiful City of Durham.

Tickets are £45 per person or £450 for a table of 10. Don’t miss out, tables are selling fast! Book your tickets online today! For more information please contact Janet Price on 0191 492 6191 or at janet.price@stroke.org.uk

30 Women Photographers and the Women Photographers Who Inspired Them: A Blog Series in Honor of Women’s History Month, March 1 – 31

Caroline Coon is a multi-talented artist born and based in Britain. She is a painter, designer and photographer whose work has been exhibited at major London galleries, including the Saatchi Gallery and the Tate. Her photographs are in the National Portrait Gallery, and currently on display at the Strand Gallery in She-Bop-a-Lula, an exhibit celebrating female singers captured by women photographers.

In the 1970’s and 80’s, Coon wrote about, designed for, and photographed a number of Punk Rock bands, including The Slits and The Clash. Her New Wave Punk Rock Explosion is an inside, “as it happened” story of punk, with iconic images, and commentary by musicians and fans. (Photo: Jenny Runacre and Toyah Willcox 1977 © Caroline Coon/Camera Press)

Happy Halloween to you all – and spookily… a bunch of vampires will descend on Ipswich this evening. Rumour has it it the event will be filmed as well!! Toyah and Vampires Rock are at the Ipswich Regent, with a film crew capturing the show for a future DVD release (not confirmed as yet but highly likely).

PS. It’s exactly one year since Latex Messiah (Viva La Rebel In You) was released. Time flies!

PS. It’s                                 exactly one year since ‘Latex                                 Messiah (Viva La Rebel In You)’                                 was released. Time flies!

Happy Halloween to all Dreamscape’s visitors. The great news this October 31st is that Toyah’s Latex Messiah (Viva La Rebel In You)  is currently number 30 on the iTunes Plus Top 100 Downloads Chart, and, better still, number six in the iTunes Plus Rock chart. It is also no. 92 in the general iTunes Rock chart. Keep downloading!!

Thanks so much to everyone who has shown interest in celebrating 25 years of Toyah in 2003.

BRILLIANT DAY – 25 Years Of Toyah (changed from Toyah’s Silver Jubilee), so long as enough people want to attend, will definitely be happening. So please, if you can make it to Stoke, late February (either a Saturday or Sunday) then let me know and I’ll add your name to the list (see below).

The info that’s available so far, though obviously could change, is as follows:

A ‘Brilliant Day’ of Toyah fun, celebration and partying for Toyah fans/followers old & new, young, young at heart, and not-so-young – sometime late February 2003 at ‘The Club’ in Hanley, Stoke-On-Trent (generously provided by John – aka Ruby). Possibly in conjunction with the release of the new “Little Tears Of Love” EP and even a possibility that Carlton TV may film a part of their new Toyah documentary on the day too (NB – Both of these are definitely NOT confirmed to happen as yet).

Anyone wishing to buy, sell, trade or swap Toyah memoribilia is welcome to bring it along to do so during the day. We are hoping to be showing retro Toyah TV appearances all day too. A Toyah impersonator, or a Toyah lookey likey competition, or both, will take place early evening.

The day will end with a party, Toyah sounds aplenty, interspersed with lots of other ’80s classics. Eighties pop star fancy dress is optional but hopefully some folks will rise to the challenge! It would be good to see Toyah, Adam Ant, Siouxsie, Madonna etc shaking their thang on the dancefloor:)

Susan Hailes from ‘The Stage’ is hoping to get us a few column inches to spread the word and maybe a few other papers/websites will help out too.

Stoke bound so far – David, John, Carl, Craig, Dan Greensmith, Paul & Sue Richards, Alec & friends, Richard, Brian, Paul Cable & friends, Michael O’Brien, Kev Tucker & friends, Claire Ormrod & friends, Dean Warren, Jonathan Benson, Steve Bennett, Karen Wadsworth, Roger & Shaun, Russell Eden, Sean, Anya, Dave Gilchrist…

More information soon.

Next year is, albeit completely unofficial, Toyah’s “Silver Jubilee”!

‘What are you talking about?’, I hear you holler!

Well, in 1978 things started “happening” for TW – big style. Her music, film, theatre and television careers all seemed to conspire to ensure she got very little sleep that year!

The Toyah band finally took shape – in the form of Joel Bogen on guitar, Steve Bray on drums, Pete Bush on keyboards and Mark Henry on bass (though very soon replaced by Charlie Francis), and, of course, Toyah on vocals/verbals/strange noises! They appeared on their first TV show too, Pebble Mill At One and soon-after signed to Safari Records.

Jubilee opened in UK and European cinemas in ’78, and Toyah spent a chunk of the year filming The Corn Is Green and Quadrophenia for the big screen and Quatermass for the small.

So 2003 really is, technically at least, the 25th anniversary of Toyahdom!

Thanks to Robbie and Deano over at Angels & Demons I’ve had an idea:) A one-day Toyah convention to celebrate this important landmark. I’m mentioning it now so that everyone has plenty of time to decide whether this is a good idea, where (Ruby’s – Stoke?) and when (Toyah’s 45th birthday or Summer 2003?) it could take place, and if they want to attend.

A rough guide to ‘Toyah’s Jubilee’ Convention:

• During the day – memoribila stalls, Toyah items – buy, sell, trade?
• Early evening – lookalike competition or Toyah impersonator?
• Night – Big party, 80s Popstar fancy-dress (Thanks Brian;), wall-to-wall Toyah sounds!

Other suggestions, so far, include a charity auction, competitions, Toyah footage video-wall, live performances by the lookalikes (soundalikes – ‘Stars In Their Ieya’s’).

Now at present this is all totally hypothetical but also completely possible. What does everyone else think? A good idea?, crap idea?, too tacky? Please contribute or make suggestions. If this is to become a reality then it would be fantastic to get as many Toyah fans (UK, Europe, US, everywhere) as possible to attend.