Dreamscape – Toyah Willcox Fansite

• The 1980 BBC version of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde has now been released on DVD in Sweden. This release has a slightly different cover to the UK version (released in 2007). The cast includes David Hemmings, Diana Dors and Toyah. View a larger version of the Swedish cover here.

• Derek Jarman’s 1979 version of The Tempest is just about to be released on Blu-ray (Region A/1) for the first time. There’s a new review of the film at the Criterion Cast website: A less easy choice however came in the casting of Miranda, which went to punk rock mega-star (and also star of Criterion-approved Jubilee also from Jarman and the soon to be released Quadrophenia) Toyah Willcox. Always seen as a virginal young woman, Willcox’s punk rock persona far from fit the character, but her performance was really quite entertaining, and the relationship between she and Williams’ Prospero is vital and engaging.

• A larger version of The Tempest Blu-ray cover is also now available. View here.

• Qudrophenia Region A/1 Blu-ray: Read more details on this forthcoming release at Modculture: As they say “You can get a UK Blu-ray already, but the Quadrophenia Criterion Collection Blu-ray release is a considerable step up from that.”

• Also at Modculture: View a limited edition Quadrophenia poster by Piper Gates Design, and read a new article on the movie by Eddie Piller.

The cover for the forthcoming Region A/1 Blu-ray release of Derek Jarman’s The Tempest has been made available. The Blu-ray edition, remastered by Kino International, will be released on 7th August.

The photo used, of Toyah as Miranda, is the same iconic shot used on the Region 1 DVD release from the early 2000s. A different photo is used on the Region 2 release. There’s no word on when, or if, there will be a European Blu-ray release of The Tempest.

SYNOPSIS: Shot on location at the ancient and ghostly Stoneleigh Abbey, The Tempest tells the story of Prospero the magician, who lives with his nubile daughter on an enchanted island and punishes his enemies when they are shipwrecked there. It’s a study of sexual and political power in the guise of a fairy tale. Jarman presents Shakespeare’s intricate comedy of magic and revenge in a form that is at once faithful to the spirit of the play and an original and dazzling spectacle mixing Hollywood pastiche, high camp, and gothic horror. His film recalls the innocent homoeroticism of Pasolini’s versions of classics, while its lush sense of decor and color is worthy of Minnelli. Remastered in HD and available for the first time on Blu-ray!

BONUS FEATURES: Three short films by Derek Jarman: ”A Journey To Avebury”, ”Garden Of Luxor” and ”Art Of Mirrors”, trailers and more.

“Full of magic and surprises…the most truly spectacular British film in years.” – The London Times

The film airs on TV at least once every couple of months, most recently on BBC4, STV, ITV4 and Sky Indie, it’s just about to be released on Region 1 Blu-ray, and it seems to be as popular now as it was when first released 33 years ago! Quadrophenia! Here are a few rare items related to the film that I’ve spotted over the years: An advert for the soundtrack album; Japanese promo poster for the film; Japanese movie program, a car bumper sticker; and the Quadrophenia poster magazine. View a larger version of these and the full poster mag.

• Jelly, the band which includes Stevie Bray of the original Toyah (Sheep Farming/Blue Meaning) line up, play their very first gig this weekend: The gig is at the The Water Rats, Grays Inn Road, Kings Cross. Visit the events page at Facebook for more info and details on how to be added to the guest list. Check out Jelly’s Facebook page for links to some of their songs.

• A full transcript of Toyah’s recent ‘Radio Chorley’ interview at Blackpool Pride is now available at The Toyah Willcox Interview Archive.

• Kevin Tucker’s brilliant Mermaid Days website, photos and memories of Toyah in Trafford Tanzi at the Mermaid Theatre in 1983, has been resurrected as a Facebook group. The site ran for a number of years through the Noughties and it’s great to see it return.

• A Quadrophenia Club Night, in association with Falkirk Steeple Scooter Club, is taking place at Falkirk Town Hall on Saturday 18th August. You’ll be in for a great night of non-stop entertainment starting with the the screening in magnificent Blu-ray of Quadrophenia (first time on a Falkirk cinema screen for 33 years!!) and then dance the rest of the night away in a re-creation of the legendary Goldhawk Club where Alex Carnaby will be playing all the authentic sounds of the sixties, Truly not to be missed! View further info and ticket details here. (Thanks to Mark Leonard)

Another new review of Jubilee, this one from Death Rattle. Includes some good screenshots: Toyah Willcox (Mad) went on to be somewhat of a New Wave icon. Please click below to read.

This evening is Quadrophenia/The Who night on ‘BBC Four’. Beginning at 9pm.

Jubilee is showing tonight at the Rio Cinema in Dalston, London.

The midnight movie lives on in Dalston!
SAT 9 Jun • Late Night | JUBILEE (18) 11.30pm

(UK 1977) dir. Derek Jarman. 100m. Jenny Runacre, Toyah Willcox, Adam Ant, Orlando, Ian Charleson, Richard O’Brien.

Celebrate the 2012 Jubilee with Derek Jarman’s safety-pin and barbed-wire vision of a 1977 London in ruins (all burning prams and castrated policemen) which combines a meditation on English mysticism guided by a time-travelling Queen Elizabeth I and a wild ‘n’ crazy tale of the rampages of a gang of personality punk psychos. Soundtrack contributions come from Adam and the Ants , Wayne County and the Electric Chairs , Chelsea, Siouxie and the Banshees, the Slits and Brian Eno. Rule Britannia!

Get those miniature Union flags at the ready, put on your Chinese made Union Jack HQT (High Quality Tat) and get down to the ICA to watch Jubilee… Oh wait, it’s not that sort of thing. It’s the 1978 film by Derek Jarman about time-travel and punk, set in 1970’s London, with Adam Ant, The Slits and Siouxsie And The Banshees making appearances and Brian Eno doing the score.

• After playing Mad in Jubilee in 1977 Derek Jarman wanted Toyah to play Joan of Arc in a new film he was planning to make. This isn’t just a rumour, Toyah talked about it when she guested at ‘Derek Jarman: A Celebration’ at The Tate in October 2001. Unfortunately Joan of Arc didn’t go past the planning stages but they worked together on The Tempest instead. View a larger version of our “Toyah of Arc” photo.

• Return to Falling To Earth soon for some screen caps from yesterday’s Saturday Cookbook.

• An interview with Phil Davis at the Mirror. This includes that iconic Quadrophenia photo!

• More new blog posts on Jubilee, from In The Dark, Film Fan and Random Ramblings, Thoughts and Fiction, The film is also showing this evening at 7pm at The Cube in Bristol.

• Toyah at BBC iPlayer: Hole In The Wall, with Toyah guesting, from November 2009, is available to watch online at iPlayer until Monday evening.

To all of Falling To Earth‘s visitors… Have a great holiday weekend…

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.

Adam Ant was interviewed by BBC News today…

Goddard also appeared alongside a then unknown Toyah Willcox in Derek Jarman’s 1978 punk film Jubilee – but said it had been “surreal” rather than an anti-royal statement. The apocalyptic fantasy focuses on the activities of a wild girl gang in 1977.

He added: “I think Jubilee was really a piece of film, a surreal kind of journey that just happened to land slap bang into the middle of the Queen’s Silver Jubilee. I wasn’t doing it to make a statement about the Royal Family or anything like that. I left that to people like The Clash, certain bands that love to be political, which I’m not.”

• Continue reading at BBC News.

Quadrophenia is also coming to Blu-ray in the US later in the year. Blu-ray.com have the film listed for release, through The Criterion Collection, with more information than there is for The Tempest.

Quadrophenia (1979)
London, 1965: Like many other youths, Jimmy hates the philistine life, especially his parents and his job in a company’s mailing division. Only when he’s together with his friends, a ‘Mod’ clique, cruises London on his motor-scooter and hears music such as that of ‘The Who’ and ‘The High Numbers’, he feels free and accepted. However, it’s a flight into an illusionary world.

Quadrophenia (August 28th, 2012)
• New high-definition digital restoration of the uncut version
• Original 2.0 stereo soundtrack as well as an all-new 5.1 surround mix, supervised by the Who and presented in DTS-HD Master Audio
• New audio commentary featuring director Franc Roddam and director of photography Brian Tufano
• New interview with Bill Curbishley, the film’s co-producer and the Who’s co-manager
• New interview with the Who’s sound engineer, Bob Pridden, discussing the new mix, featuring a restoration demonstration
• On-set and archival footage
• Behind-the-scenes photographs
• A booklet featuring an essay by critic Nick James, a reprinted personal history by original mod Irish Jack, and Pete Townshend’s liner notes from the album

• According to Blu-ray.com Derek Jarman’s 1979 film The Tempest, with Toyah in a lead role as Miranda, will be released on Blu-ray later this year. Kino Video will release The Tempest in America on 7th August 2012. (NB: This isn’t the Blu-ray cover :))

• Fans of The Tempest may be interested in a recent edition of BBC Radio 3’s Arts & Ideas: Philip Dodd presents a Landmark edition devoted to Shakespeare’s The Tempest, a drama reimagined by artists from Purcell to Derek Jarman via TS Eliot, Derek Walcott and Thomas Adès. The podcast is available here.

• Last night’s Dark Night Of The Soul with Julie, on WFMU, opened with two Toyah songs and one by The Humans: ‘Rebel Run’, ‘Angel & Me’ and ‘Love In A Different Way’.

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

• I think I may have mentioned this in the past, though possibly not! The 1986 film Toyah appeared in, alongside Christopher Lee, The Disputation, is available on DVD.

• Toyah Live 2012: Another new live date has been added to the Official Gigs page at toyahwillcox.com. Toyah plays a live PA at ‘Birmingham Pride’ at the Eden Bar on Sunday 3rd June 2012. Toyah is also playing Blackpool Pride (9th June) and Manchester Pride (26th August).

• Adam Ant (Adam Ant & The Good The Mad & The Lovely Posse) is playing a lot of live gigs this year, including festivals and a tour. View here.

• Books and Music and Stuff: Three Top British Films: 3. Quadrophenia. View here.

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.

Quadrophenia is showing on STV in May. The channel airs in Scotland but is available UK wide via Sky.

Quadrophenia: STV: Tuesday 8th May: 00.10am
Quadrophenia: STV +1: Tuesday 8th May: 1.10am
The Who wrote and produced this energetic story of a young man disillusioned with his life in 1960s London. Phil Daniels excels as the alienated anti-hero Jimmy Cooper. Director: Franc Roddam. Starring: Phil Daniels, Leslie Ash, Toyah Willcox, Philip Davis, Mark Wingett, Sting, and Ray Winstone. Also airing on STV HD.

‘PAC Photography’, who will be at The Robin, Wolverhampton this Saturday to photograph Toyah’s ‘Changeling Resurrection’ gig, have an excellent selection of archive photos of Toyah and The Humans at their website.

The website includes photos of Toyah from the ‘From Sheep Farming To Anthem’ gig at the Slade Rooms, Wolverhampton last October and photos from two of The Humans concerts, at The Public, West Bromwich and HMV Institute, Birmingham, both also from last October. (access via: View your pictures – Live Music)

There are also photos taken at The Power of Three film premiere at the Everyman Theatre in Hampstead, London in November last year. (access via: View your pictures – events)

• Visit ‘PAC Photography’ here.

• The rare promo poster for the American video release of Murder: Ultimate Grounds for Divorce from the mid-80s. View a larger version here. (Thanks to Sean Green)

• According to a tweet today by ‘The Showbusiness Co’: “Joe Pasquale, Bobby Davro, Toyah Willcox, Richard Digance and many more appear in the Dave Lee tribute show at Marlowe, Canterbury on 6 May.”

• View more details about Dave Lee A Celebration at The Marlowe theatre website. There are other news reports  today about the show. None of these mention Toyah.

• Three musicians, who have all worked with Toyah at various stages of her music career, play at ‘Jammin Java’, Vienna tomorrow. STICK MEN ft. Tony Levin, Pat Mastelotto and Markus Reuter. More info here.

• Manchester Pride Twitter today: “The Women’s Stage will return to Sackville Gardens for this year’s event. We’ll welcome Toyah as the headline act!”

• Canal Street (Manchester) Twitter today: “Look who is headlining the Women’s stage at Manchester Pride this year.. Toyah”

• Collapse Board: How I lost my love for music (and how I found it again): The first record I think was mine was ‘I Want To Be Free’ by Toyah…

• So So Gay: Blue To Headline Blackpool Pride 2012. Toyah is also mentioned in this article published today.

• Toyah Montaging: I’ve, quite literally, thrown together a couple of Toyah video montages. At The Rainbow and some career clips. I’d love to do a more professional and substantial career montage at some point, with lots of interview and music clips, almost like a documentary type retrospective.