Dreamscape | The Toyah Willcox Fansite

Exclusive interview with Simon Cox, director of Kaleidoscope Man

You’ve just returned from the cinema and what an experience: the music, the action, the story, the special effects and those edge-of-your-seat moments! If you’re an independent filmmaker or film fan you might dream one day of making such a film. So you’ve decided to make to make a feature film, not only that, but fund it independently, gather a wonderful team and five hundred supporters from around the world. Simon Cox, director of sci-fi feature film Kaleidoscope Man, has done just that. I was intrigued to find out more , so I caught up with him.

JT: What was the moment you decided to embark on making a sci-fi feature film ?

SC: I’ve wanted to make an epic sci-fi movie since I first saw the original Star Wars when I was 13. I came up with the initial idea for Kaleidoscope Man back in 1999 after I’d finished my first feature Written in Blood (1998). I had no idea it would take me nearly 20 years to make!

JT: How did you go about getting the team together to make K – Man?

SC: Having worked in TV and film over the years, a lot of the people I’ve brought in were people I’d met along the way. I also found a few local people who have since joined the team. Our cameraman, Gordon Hickie, shot my first feature film (Written in Blood) and he now shoots Holby City, Casualty and The Inspector Lyndley Mysteries.

I found the cast via acting agencies apart from Toyah Willcox who I met at a film meeting a few years ago.

• Continue reading the interview at D&C Film. Browse Dreamscape’s Kaleidoscope Man news archive. (Photo © kaleidoscopeman.com)

Creativity, longevity and relationship advice with Toyah Willcox

There aren’t many things that make me nervous these days, I’ve come to the conclusion that I can pretty much hold my own in most situations. I’m rarely intimidated and I refuse to treat anyone any differently because of their status. It would seem strange then, that as I’m sitting at my desk watching the clock ticking ever closer to 11am, my palms are sweating and my heart is beating so fast I have to take deep breaths to stop it from leaping out of my chest.

I have a fairly solid reason for the nerves mind you, at the aforementioned time I’m scheduled to do a telephone interview with Toyah Willcox. The prospect of dialing her number and asking to speak to her is doubly scary because I have loved her work since I first saw her perform on Top Of The Pops, and if the truth be told, I’ve never done anything like this before – I didn’t tell her that though and I hope she didn’t realise!

The purpose of the call was to talk to her about her sharing the stage with the fabulous Marc Almond for the Last Night Party at the Grassington Festival of Music and Arts that’s taking place June 17th to July 2nd. It sounds like it’s going to be a fantastic festival (and why wouldn’t it be, it is in Yorkshire after all). Toyah is supporting Marc Almond for the final night of the event July 2nd at the Festival in the Field Marquee.

• Continue reading at Northern Life Magazine. (Photos © Toyah Willcox/Dean Stockings)

A new interview with Toyah – one of the best for quite a while – has been published by the Write Wyatt blog.

Getting up close and personal with Toyah

Regular readers of this blog won’t be surprised that this scribe is an avid viewer of BBC 4’s Top of the Pops re-runs, a point I soon confess to my latest interviewee, Toyah Willcox.

“Oh, God bless those!”

The more recently re-aired shows take me back to my early teens, at a time when this highly-recognisable West Midlands raised actress and singer was enjoying a string of hits, not least the distinctive It’s a Mystery, Thunder in the Mountains and I Want To Be Free.

Admittedly, you’ve always had to wade through a lot of rubbish on Top of the Pops, recent examples ranging from Captain Beaky and Joe Dolce to The Snowmen and Starsound. But it also makes me realise how many great characters there were in music at the time. ‘Old bloke with rose-tinted nostalgic specs’ alert, but the charts today just don’t seem to have that same level of OTT theatricality. This was after all an era when the disparate likes of Adam Ant, Buster Bloodvessel, Clare Grogan, Hazel O’Connor, John Lydon, Lee John, Siouxsie Sioux and Ms Willcox herself were beamed into our front rooms on Thursday nights. Just where are the characters now?

“It was phenomenal back then. There were big characters out there. We all had to perform live and came up performing live. There were very few contrived acts. A very different time. We also all wrote, and I think it’s really important to write your own material. It was almost a dirty word to do somebody else’s song.

“I had to be coerced into doing Echo Beach (1987). That was a hit for me, but I felt a sense of shame at the time. Now I absolutely love performing it. Back then it was really important that the songs were your voice.”

• Continue reading at Write Wyatt.

Toyah Willcox gives us the lowdown on Rewind Festival

We caught up with the punk princess to talk all things 80s music and Rewind

In 2014 she topped the iTunes Rock chart with her American band The Humans, and this year will see more music releases and touring – including a stop off at Rewind Festival South in Henley.

This year will see her fifth performance at the mega music weekender. But what is it that keeps bringing her back to Rewind?

Toyah said: “This is what I do, it simply is what I do. I do all sorts of festivals including Glastonbury and all of that, but the one thing about Rewind is that it’s just designed brilliantly.

“The audience love it and it’s just such good fun. There are a ridiculous amount of artists and the production standards are out of this world.

“I do still get nervous in the festival environment, but I have a job to do. I remember performing and turning around to give the band a wink and seeing us on this huge massive video wall – it’s such high quality.”

• Continue reading at Get Reading.

Toyah Willcox on Botox, plastic surgery and why she has one of the happiest marriages in showbiz

The punk icon has just celebrated her 30th wedding anniversary and is happier than ever

Punk icon Toyah Willcox has just as much attitude now as she did when she burst on to the music scene in the 1980s.

She may be just 5ft tall, but the singer and actress makes up for her lack of inches in decibels.

Toyah, 58, and husband, King Crimson guitarist Robert Fripp, 70, have just celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary, and she roars laughing as she reveals why this showbiz marriage is one that works .

• Continue reading at the Mirror.

Quadrophenia star Toyah Willcox says her character has become a ‘sexual predator’

The 80s singer said: “The natural journey for my character, nearly 40 years on, has seen her become a sexual predator, working in the sex industry”

A sequel to the iconic British mod movie Quadrophenia is being made – 37 years after the original.

The new film will star many of the same cast members as the 1979 cult hit – singer Toyah Willcox, 58, Mark Wingett, 55, Phil Daniels, 57 and Trevor Laird, 58, and will start filming in London this summer.

80s popstar Toyah will revisit her role as Monkey – who has grown into a swinging cougar. She said: “Quadrophenia was really zeitgeist and it’s never really gone away, as every new generation connects with it.

“No-one expected that to happen – it grabbed teenage angst by the balls and never let go. None of us realised the impact it would have at the time – we were all just desperate to out do each other. The natural journey for my character, nearly 40 years on, has seen her become a sexual predator, working in the sex industry as a madam. She’s married to one of the other main characters and they’re swingers.”

• Continue reading at The Mirror. (Photos © TSIPhotography.co.uk)

A rare interview with Toyah, from Norwegian TV in 1981, has recently been uploaded to You Tube by Retro-Pop Norwegian Video Clips – Click on the screen caps to watch.

An interview with Toyah from early 1982, by Molly Meldrum, which aired on the Australian music programme Countdown on the ABC channel. Click below to watch.

Toyah’s interview on the Doctors set is online at the BBC website.  Now you’ve seen the episode, watch this behind-the-scenes exclusive with the legendary Toyah Willcox. Click below to watch.

• Ever wondered what it takes to be a zombie? This Doctors EXCLUSIVE shows you the fabulous work our make up artists do. Browse all of Dreamscape’s “Toyah on Doctors” news here.

Toyah was interviewed earlier this month, in Metro‘s “60 Seconds With”, discussing Aaaaaaaah! and more.

The actress and singer, 57, is starring in a dark British comedy where all the characters act like wild apes.

Your new film, Aaaaaaaah!, is brilliantly bonkers. Why did you say yes to a movie about humans behaving like apes?
It was a clever. well structured, brilliant script with absolutely no respect for anything. It was fabulously complex and incredibly rewarding to do. But I never thought, ‘What the hell have I got myself into?’ because it was a team of really great comedians (including Julian Rhind-Tutt and Julian Barrett) and so they had licence to do something as mad as this.

How do you describe it to your friends?
The first thing I say is, ‘Don’t go and see it!’ I’m 57, so my friends aren’t that much older than me. I said, ‘If you can’t handle vomit, poo, semen, gratuitous sex and gratuitous violence, this isn’t for you,’ and they say, ‘Oh God we’ve got to see this film!’

What was the maddest scene?
It was a kitchen scene. I cook for my husband (musician Robert Fripp) three times a day and so to do the cooking scene was very natural. But to do it where there are no social norms and no hygiene is a very different thing. To do a cookery scene while watching telly with one of the most brilliant interpretations of food porn I’ve ever seen and then to take a crap in the corner – I just thought it was utter genius… Read more…

Just uploaded to Dreamscape’s You Tube channel, a retro interview with Toyah from ITV’s Live Talk. This aired on 26th September 2000 on the short-lived show, which evolved into Loose Women. Toyah was guesting to talk about her, just published, autobiography “Living Out Loud”.

• Browse previous additions by Dreamscape to You Tube: Ask Aspel (1981); Formel Eins/Don’t Fall in Love (1985); This Morning (1992); Life & Times Of Toyah Willcox (2000); Nationwide (1982); Sky Trax (1985); Parkinson (1981); Saturday Action (1982); Get Set For Summer (1982); Breakfast Time (1985); Get Set (1983); The Saturday Show (1983); This Morning (1994); V Graham Norton (2002); TISWAS (1981); It’s Your Funeral (2001); Sixty Minutes (1983); Neno (1987); Saturday Superstore (1983); Harty (1983); Breakfast Time (1987).

Steve Oram on AAAAAAAAH!, monkey business and Battenberg

We talk to Steve Oram about his mad monkey movie Aaaaaaaah!

You’ve not seen anything quite like Steve Oram’s dark comedy Aaaaaaaah! Set in a dystopian world where everyone behaves like apes (complete with grunting, there’s no dialogue), it’s a viciously funny and totally odd piece of work that’s been building excellent word of mouth since its debut at FrightFest.

The film has been going round a few festivals, how have you found the reaction so far?
We’ve had various screenings all around the country, we had a little tour with Picturehouse Cinemas, so we’ve been going round with them and it’s been brilliant. We’ve been doing Q & As at most of these places and I’ve been blown away by the response, it seems people like no-dialogue films these days! FrightFest was a really good start for us, it was amazing. It really seems to be growing, which is great. We had a really good screening at Mayhem in Nottingham on Sunday, which went really well. Really great crowd there, very pleased.

Did you have actors in mind?
I did, I wrote most of the parts for the actors that ended up playing them. They’re gathered from the comedy world and most of them are good friends of mine, Tom Meeten who plays my beta male in it and Julian [Barratt] and Noel [Fielding] and Julian Rhind-Tutt, Holly Dempsey, they’re all really good friends, but Toyah [Willcox] was the one I didn’t know. I just sent her a script because I was a huge fan of her in Jubilee and Quadrophenia, her early work I think is just incredible. And she loved it and fit right in with all my mental friends! Which was really great, a really happy coincidence.

• Continue reading at SciFiNow.

Toyah Willcox on why she wasn’t terrified of the sex scenes in new film Aaaaaaaah!

Former teenage rebel stars in new film where the actors resort to grunting rather than words

Hell hath no fury like a woman with a frying pan in her hand when men are being stupid. But if you asked Toyah Willcox’s latest film character Barbara what she’s doing with it, you might not be able to understand her answer.

In the directorial debut of Sightseers’ actor and comedy star Steve Oram, the cast began with a script in English and then threw it away after breaking the words down into grunts. The result is Aaaaaaaah! – the year’s most original comedy horror, about a dysfunctional community who seem to be taking the human race backwards in south London. Although the actors look like humans and the film is a study of the human condition, the characters on screen behave and grunt like apes.

With Toyah playing a community leader called Barbara, the story is about men’s relationships with each other and the opposite sex while trying to reach for alpha-male status. While it’s a rare 18-certificate movie with no bad language, the 79-minute film is peppered with explicit and sometimes violent sexual scenes which include dismemberment.

• Continue reading at the Birmingham Mail.

Eighties pop icon Toyah Willcox will play Stonehaven Town Hall this Friday and Saturday night with the singer eager to look around the town.

The former punk princess – whose biggest hit was ‘It’s A Mystery’ spoke to the Mearns Leader this week about playing Stonehaven, looking forward to fish and chips and what fans can expect.

Toyah said: “I’m really looking forward to the show as we’ve never been to Stonehaven and it is great to have the chance to go there. As it is on the coast I’m looking forward to getting to know the town and I love history so I’d love to walk around the museum.”

The event is being organised by music shop owner Chris Stirk with tickets still available for both shows. Toyah’s two gigs follows her successful appearance recently at the Rewind festival in Perth with the singer adding that she’ll have all the hits and maybe a few surprises for those attending.

She said: “I think fans are going to really enjoy the show as it is fun and it is really about them. I’ll have all the hits, the singles from the 80s and singles that have charted on iTunes in the last couple of years. It will be a fun and able show, where we’ll look to put in a few other songs.”

• Continue reading at the Mearns Leader. See all of Toyah’s forthcoming Proud, Loud & Electric gigs at toyahwillcox.com.

Punk artist Toyah Willcox hails Derby rock hotspot as one of the best in the country

Punk pioneer Toyah Willcox is back in Derby tomorrow night – at a rock hotspot she hails as one of the best venues in the country! Toyah will be performing at The Flowerpot on her “‘Proud, Loud and Electric” tour.

“My American band, The Humans, played The Flowerpot at least six year ago, it was one of the best gigs we’ve done! I love it there!” Toyah exclaims, when asked about Derby.

Fans who decide to attend the show can expect a truly unique performance.

“I always make sure that the band and I gear the music to the venue. We always look around and judge the audience then tailor our set to what they want so it’s different every night. Some nights they want a heavy set and sometimes they want to hear laid-back music. The Flowerpot is a really intimate venue with a low ceiling so it’s going to be a real rock ‘n’ roll show.

“I wanted to call the tour a name that allowed us to cherry-pick from a retrospective of 36 years of music. Because it’s so small, it’s going to get pretty hot in there so we’ll be playing a lot of music from the punk days.”

• Continue reading at the Derby Telegraph.

Toyah is the cover star of the new issue of Boyz Magazine (10th September 2015). There is also an interview with her inside – Read it online by clicking below.

Onion Talking: Steve Oram Opens Wide & Says AAAAAAAAH!

With AAAAAAAAH!, are you trying to say something significant about modern society, or is the construct simply an idea that you liked?

It’s just something I found funny; I didn’t set out to make something that was a satire or a commentary. I just really enjoyed creating an intricate world, and creating the interactions and the characters – making them do silly, extreme things.

You’ve worked with many of the cast members multiple times before, but how did you decide on which new faces to bring on board, like Toyah and Julian Rhind-Tutt?

With Toyah, I loved her work in Jubilee and Quadrophenia – I’ve been a massive fan of hers for years. I was trying to cast a lady in her 50s who wouldn’t mind having to do embarrassing sex scenes and have blancmange thrown at her face. There’s not that many of them! I didn’t know her before, but I sent her the script and she loved it.

• Read the full interview at The Velvet Onion. Browse all of our Steve Oram news.

It’s a busy Friday night in London’s West End, I escape the hustle and bustle in the new Picturehouse cinema bar; it’s vast and empty… the calm before the storm. The venue anticipates a celeb-studded screening of the new Steve Oram film “Aaaaaaaah!” and I am anticipating meeting Steve to talk about his new (crazy-amazing) film.

I attended the press screening of Aaaaaaaah! a couple of weeks ago & the film completely haunted me. Images and thoughts from the movie were triggered by day-to-day life. In that sense it is extremely powerful and well crafted, well acted. I’m not exactly sure what it was trying to say, but I think like a lot of good art, it says what you want it to say.

… Then who should appear in the cinema bar, but Toyah Willcox (one of the leading ladies in the film) she’s dressed in a beautiful orange dress, her hair coiffed but not overdone. She’s sprightly and bubbly and bounds up to our table chatting about how she still gigs 3 times a week. But who knew Toyah could act? Toyah’s acting is incredible in Aaaaaaaah! & she would like to do more acting, her range is pretty broad, she had just filmed an episode of Doctors (that daytime show on BBC), which couldn’t be further from her character in Aaaaaaaah! I asked Steve about how he came to cast Toyah in his movie, “I’ve always been a long time fan of Toyah’s acting, she’s brilliant in Quadrophenia. People forget Toyah can act, but they shouldn’t forget.”

Robert Fripp is Toyah’s other half, and the music in the film is by King Crimson Projekts, and it’s a perfect otherworldly, primal backdrop.

• Continue reading at The Huffington Post.

Screen talks to the British actor about his feature directorial debut, which receives its world premiere today [Aug 28] at Film4 FrightFest.

Set to be one of the most original films of this year’s Film4 FrightFest, Aaaaaaaah! is a twisted family drama with a difference: there is no dialogue, with all actors speaking in animalistic grunts and moans.

It marks the feature directorial debut of British actor Steve Oram who, along with Alice Lowe, wrote and starred in Ben Wheatley’s Sightseers.

Aaaaaaaah!, produced by Lincoln Studios, receives its world premiere today [Aug 28] and Oram believes FrightFest is the ideal place for the film to make its bow.

“FrightFest accepts and celebrates the weirdos, and we think we fit in quite well there,” enthuses Oram. “It’s the perfect showcase for us. It’s totally un-snooty and just about people who love strange films and horror films. It’s a big opportunity to show it to the people, which is all I care about really.”

• Continue reading at Screen Daily.

Sightseers co-writer and star Steve Oram delivers his demented directorial debut AAAAAAAAH! at FrightFest this Friday 28th August. The mad as a plate of badgers, monkey horror/ sci-fi hybrid previews in Discover Screen 1 with Steve, Toyah Willcox and other cast members due to attend.

With stateside screening dates booked, AAAAAAAAH! looks to destined for cult status and is sure to set Steve on a path to greater film-making opportunities. We chatted to Steve about AAAAAAAAH!’s inception and production along with the state of modern indie cinema and the secrets to mining comedy genius.

How do you pronounce the title is it AAAAAAAAH!?
However you want, I will leave that to the viewer. You can say it like AAAAAAAAH! or AAAAAAAAH! or AAAAAAAAH! Many variations. Multi.

How did you come up with such a warped idea? Did it evolve from something else or was it more of a light-bulb moment?
It’s something that has always fascinated me: how ape-like we all are and yet we rarely reference it in our every-day lives. I’ve always been a big fan of Planet of the Apes and did a short film with the same concept a couple of years ago. So I guess it grew from there.

Was it an easy casting process?
I always had a few names in mind: the two Julians (Rhind-Tutt and Barratt), Tom Meeten but Toyah Willcox I wasn’t expecting, I just sent her the script which she loved and was very enthusiastic about. I think if you tell an actor they have to do run around being a monkey, they’ll probably do it. They love that sort of shit.

The soundtrack to AAAAAAAAH! was pretty amazing. As a musician, did you have much involvement?
The main person who provided the soundtrack was Robert Fripp who donated a largely improvised album to us to use however we wanted. So that’s all just the genius of Robert really. I did most of the shit stuff that sounded like an ape made it.

• Continue reading at HeyUGuys.

An interesting new interview with, Toyah’s former PR person, Judy Totton.

Getting the right publicity for concert tours and festival appearances is a skill, and, despite the open internet field provided by Facebook and Twitter, some directed guidance and good old common sense remain valuable assets

Who are you?
Judy Totton of Judy Totton Publicity. I’m based in London and work in the UK, though I do have media contacts overseas. I promote big events, charity shows, companies and theatre, as well as artists releasing albums or touring. Some of my current clients are Bill Wyman, who has just released his first UK solo album in 33 years, Joan Armatrading on her last big world tour, Andy Fairweather Low and his band The Low Riders, Joe Brown and Paul Brady. I’ve represented many artists from all genres over the years and been involved with big festivals including Blenheim Palace and 11 years of Castle Donington Monsters of Rock.

How did you end up where you are now?
I started out in music publicity at Magnet Records. After two years there I joined CBS where I worked with a wide variety of artists from The Jacksons to ABBA, with John Cooper Clarke, The Only Ones, The Vibrators and many more in between. By the late 1970s Epic records was being split away from CBS and a lot of internal changes were happening. I wasn’t sure what to do, and it was artist agent Ian Flukes who suggested I set up my own company.

That was 1979. John Cooper Clarke and The Only Ones came with me and within a month I was approached by Status Quo. Toyah soon followed and then Haircut 100 and Orange Juice. From there I never looked back.

• Continue reading at PSN Europe.