Dreamscape | The Toyah Willcox Fansite

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.

• Prosceneium: Calamity Jane: This set for Calamity Jane was originally built for the highly acclaimed professional tour starring Toyah Willcox.

• A new ‘Blackpool Pride 2012’ flyer has been released, with Toyah included. View it here.

• Time Out London: Time Out Says: Last year she celebrated the thirtieth anniversary of her most successful album ‘Anthem’ and tonight she’ll be celebrating 30 years since the release of her second best-selling LP, ‘The Changeling’. Wilcox will be performing prime cuts from the 1982 record, as well as other material.

• A random, but funny, reminiscence about the 12″ picture disc of ‘Thunder In The Mountains’ is included the latest blog by ‘Married To The Moz’. View here.

• Let’s Get Better Terms: It’s Jubilee Time Again: Jarman knows what he is doing visually, and enjoyed gardens (with or without plastic flowers), wastelands, and also had an eye for the beauty of people like Toyah, Jordan, Jack Birkett, Helen the dwarf and many others.

Quadrophenia, as with Jubilee, is a film that has grown in popularity in the decades since its’ release. Starring Phil Daniels, who gives an incredible performance as, central character, Jimmy, the film boasts one of the most famous and iconic movie “line up” promotional photos, instantly recognisable and used on various posters over the years. Toyah plays Monkey alongside Leslie Ash, Mark Wingett, Phil Davis, Ray Winstone and numerous others. It’s worth noting that Quadrophenia and Jubilee, films focusing on punk and Mods, are two of the biggest “youth” movies of the 1970’s. Toyah has the distinction of appearing in both.

Toyah played Bessie Watty in the 1978, made for television, remake of a 1945 Bette Davis movie, The Corn Is Green. Starring the legendary Katharine Hepburn and directed by George Cukor, Toyah was working with “Hollywood royalty”. The film continues to air sporadically on UK television.

Jubilee, Toyah’s first film. She played Mad, a pyromaniac. Directed by Derek Jarman, it premiered on 22nd February 1978 at Bloomsbury Square Odeon, aka Gate 2, London. The film was derided in its first few years but has become something of a cult movie over the last decade and is regularly written about in online blogs and articles. Jubilee also featured Adam Ant in his first role, as well as Richard O’Brien and Little Nell of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

The, just revealed, artwork for The Derek Jarman Collection 5 disc DVD set. This includes Jubilee and The Tempest and will be released in Australia (but available to everyone thanks to the internet) on 2nd May 2012.

A collection of five astonishing films from a visionary British filmmaker:

Jubilee (1978) Queen Elizabeth I travels to late twentieth-century Britain to discover a tawdry and depressing landscape where life mostly seems aimless and is anyway held cheap. Three post-punk girls while away their vacuous existence as best they can, from time-to-time straying into murder to relieve the boredom.

The Tempest (1979) Jarman’s Tempest is the story of Miranda’s growth from girlhood to woman; Prospero has retreated to a world of ideas but it is cold and loveless, he condemns Caliban as a monster but all Jarman’s Caliban is guilty of is possessing carnal appetites, the same appetites which Miranda is starting to discover for herself.

• There’s an excellent selection of screen caps from Tomorrow Calling, the 1993 short film Toyah appeared in, at ‘William Gibson aleph’. Tomorrow Calling aired on Channel 4, premiering in December 1994 (part of the ‘Short & Curlies’ season), and was also presented at the British Film Festival in October 1996. View here. Take a look here too :)

• Lärwi, of The Toyah Willcox Interview Archive, has created an audio/slide video for Andi Fragg’s version of ‘Wow’. View here.

• Toyah is mentioned in the ‘Scotsman’ obituary of Andrew Currie who passed away on 28th March: In the 1990s one of his visitors was the singer Toyah Willcox who, as part of a television series, made a trip to Skye to see eagles and talk to Currie, the local expert on the subject.

• Toyah is namecked in this ‘Herts & Essex Observer’ news article on Hazel O’Connor.

• A couple of great Toyah photos (including one of Andi’s Toyah wallpapers, which seem to pop up all over the internet) in the “Make Up” gallery at ‘Pinterest’. View here.

• Rainbow Messengers: It’s A Mystery, It’s A Mystery… View here.

• The ‘Moon In The Gutter’ blog uploaded a collection of screen shots from Jubilee on Tuesday: Operation Screenshot (Films of the Seventies): Derek Jarman’s Jubilee (1978). The “revival” of all things Jubilee continues… View here.

• Evening Times: Heaven is a place on Glasgow Green… Toyah is mentioned in this article today. View here. (NB. Toyah isn’t officially confirmed as playing this concert)

• Heard of Ghost Loft? Described as having “a heavy dash of the Cocteau Twins and a little bit of early Toyah”.

• Toyah’s ‘Warrior Rock: Toyah On Tour’ album was mentioned in Tuesday night’s Alex Lester Show on BBC Radio 2. (Thanks to Luke)

• Toyah received a namecheck in the, brilliantly titled, ‘Life Like Butter Sculptures’ blog yesterday: “This morning, the random music selector fed me Toyah Willcox’s “Mein Herr”. It was exactly what I needed. I’ll go find some Joan Jett next, I think.”

‘Second Sight’, classic film and tv on DVD, has great pages dedicated to the DVD releases of Jubilee and The Tempest. Both of these. now iconic, films were reissued on Region 2 DVD in the mid-2000s.

Both are also just about to be reissued again, as part of The Derek Jarman Collection: A 5DVD box set of Derek Jarman films released by Umbrella Entertainment, in Australia, on 2nd May 2012.

• View the Jubilee page here, and The Tempest here.

Steve Riley saw The Power Of Three in Brooklyn last night and, very kindly, agreed to share his thoughts, with ‘Falling To Earth’ and our readers, on the movie:

The Power Of Three is a feel good, funny, moving, motivational and enlightening movie. I am amazed at how women are treated as they age, It’s very different being a man. All of TPOT cast were very believable and Toyah was excellent of course. I would happily see the movie again. The rest of the audience certainly appreciated it as everyone applauded as the end titles rolled.

Definitely a film worth seeing. (A huge thank you to Steve: www.steverileyart.com)