Dreamscape | The Toyah Willcox Fansite

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.

A new interview with Toyah, published today, by UK Music Reviews.

Toyah Willcox, singer–songwriter chats with Kevin Cooper about her first appearance on Top Of The Pops, touring with The Humans, the release of her new film AHHHHH!, and performing at The Flashback Festival in Clumber Park.

Toyah Willcox is an English singer-songwriter and actress. In a career spanning more than thirty years, she has had fifteen Top 40 singles, released over 20 albums, written two books, appeared in over forty stage plays and ten feature films, and voiced and presented numerous television shows.

More recently she has formed a band called The Humans, which she fronts. She also tours with her own acoustic set and is heavily involved with The Flashback and Rewind Festivals. An incredibly busy lady, it was a privilege for Kevin Cooper to have the opportunity to catch up with her for a chat and this is what she had to say.

Hi Toyah how are you?
Hello Kevin I’m good thanks for asking.

So tell me, just how is life treating Toyah at this moment in time?
It’s very good Kevin, I am so busy that I am either spending twenty hours per day in my office or I am travelling to a show. Honestly, I have never been busier but don’t get me wrong, I am not complaining, I am incredibly grateful. It is fabulous and everything is so interesting. I don’t like doing just one thing, I like to have a lot of variety and at the moment I have got that. I am currently filming a drama for the BBC; I am promoting a new movie, and I have another movie being released over in Berlin in November, and so it is just very, very busy. And thankfully the shows are going wonderfully well too.

• Continue reading at UK Music Reviews.

Toyah guested on Andy Potter’s BBC Radio Derby show this afternoon.

Toyah and hedgehog mapping: We hear from People’s Trust for Endangered Species which wants to map sightings of hedgehogs across the country.

Toyah’s interview ran for approximately six minutes and she chatted about playing at the forthcoming Flashback Festival in Worksop, Notts, as well as the difference in set list choices for such a concert and the diversity of her live audience in 2015. There was also some Teletubbies talk.

• Listen to Toyah’s interview via iPlayer at BBC Radio Derby. The full show is also available here.

The interview with Toyah and Bill Rieflin, which aired on Monday night on Severn FM’s The Encyclopaedia of Rock, is now available to listen to online.

Beginning at approximately 43 minutes into the programme. Toyah talks the history of The Humans, and the album Strange Tales – with a play of the wonderful Amnesia – The second part of the interview, which includes Bill Rieflin explaining how he initially became a member of The Humans, begins at approximately 59 minutes in and runs for around 12 minutes.

• Listen here. (Click on 13/04/15 Aerosmith Von Hertzen Toyah and The Humans)

Toyah Willcox has enjoyed a successful career as a singer and an actress for nearly 40 years. Now she is going back to her roots to embark on a UK tour with rock band The Humans.

Toyah joins Lorraine on the sofa to talk about her forthcoming tour, why 80s music is still in demand and why she is still relevant after almost four decades in the business!

Toyah and The Humans telling strange tales tour

14/04/2015: GLOUCESTER 
GUILDHALL; 16/04/2015: SOUTHAMPTON 
THE TALKING HEADS; 17/04/2015: SWANSEA 
THE GARAGE [WHITEZ]; 18/04/2015: LONDON 
100 CLUB; 19/04/2015: CHATHAM, KENT 
THE BRITANNIA

• Continue reading/Watch the interview at ITV/Lorraine.

Toyah and Bill Rieflin were interviewed on The Encyclopaedia on Severn FM tonight.

The radio station has a “Listen Again” function at their website so the interview/show may possibly become available sometime this week.

She has been a household name since the eighties, and Toyah Willcox is heading to Gloucester Guildhall tonight (Dreamscape: It’s tomorrow night!) for an intimate gig with her band The Humans.

Toyah isn’t straying far from home when she plays at the Guildhall tonight. The Brummie-born singer lives just over the county border in Worcestershire.

“Looking back on my career I think I’m someone with a good voice who can express themselves,” says Toyah who lives in Pershore with her musician husband Robert Fripp.

“I don’t think you can define it by one subject. I’m a singer and an actress but I’ve also done very well as a businesswoman. But I like to create, I like to sing, I’m very good at that, I’m a good actress but I’m stylised. I can’t lose myself in a role so there’s limitations.”

Outspoken, free-spirited and strong-willed, on the surface Toyah appears to be your typical punk rock star. But she is now known for her smoky, jazz hall vocals.

• Continue reading at the Gloucestershire Echo. Browse Toyah & The Humans’ tour dates.

Toyah Willcox has been pushing the boundaries of creativity for over 3 decades. Whether it’s through music or performance, she has never shied away from following her instincts. Her current creative project with The Humans is about experimenting with storytelling through sound. Toyah tells me “sonically it’s like nothing you’ve ever heard before because we’re very bass driven. I absolutely love the bass as an instrument of tonal beauty. With this band I wanted to make sure there

was nothing competing with the frequency but the voice work. So the voice sits upon this very masculine bass.” The juxtaposition of a feminine vocal and dominant percussive instruments gives The Human their unique sound and breaks down musical boundaries.

• Continue reading at Photo Groupie.

Eighties star Toyah talks Fifty Shades of Grey, Seattle fairtytales and her upcoming concert in Carlisle.

Toyah Willcox in Fifty Shades of Grey shocker! When the singer saw the trailer for this blockbusting film at the cinema, something seemed familiar. “It was partly shot in an apartment I have been trying to buy in Seattle for the past two years!” she says.

“I just laughed when I saw it. My husband and I commute between Seattle and England. It’s always fun when you see Seattle on films and programmes.”

Seeing the apartment in a film about a sado-masochistic relationship has not put her off buying it. “I’m even keener on it,” she says. “It’s got good provenance!”

Toyah is coming to Cumbria this summer as part of Ultimate Ladies Night at Carlisle Racecourse.

• Continue reading at Cumbria Live.

Toyah – pushing the boundaries as she visits next week

Toyah Willcox’s 38-year career in the spotlight represents something of a split personality. Either one of those personalities – the actress or the singer – is a success in their own right.

While some singers have tried their hand at acting and some actors have flirted with the idea of releasing songs, Toyah has been doing both in tandem, and somehow separately, for her entire career.

“I couldn’t break my career into parts,” she explained. “This year I’m singing three times a week and I’m writing a lot. I have to deliver at least 20 songs a year. That’s what I do. At the same time I’m starring in a British film called Extremis which finishes shooting in three weeks. I just like to always be doing something.”

Toyah’s latest music project, The Humans, combines her vocals with two bass guitars – and that’s it. There are no drums and no lead guitars, meaning Toyah’s voice has to effectively become another instrument.

“We’re pushing the boundaries,” she said. “I like the bass as an instrument. I like its whole timbre and what we’re doing is incredibly exciting. When you think about any classic rock song, it’s the bass as well as the drum that really makes the song. The Humans are really a homage to what a wonderful instrument the bass is.”

• Continue reading at the East Grinstead Courier.

A great new interview with Toyah, published yesterday, by UK Music Reviews.

Toyah Willcox, singer, songwriter and lead vocalist with The Humans chats with Kevin Cooper about how The Humans got together, acting in Quadrophenia, her solo acoustic tour and the tour of the UK with The Humans.

Toyah Willcox, singer, songwriter from the 1980’s and actor, formed The Humans in 2007 after her husband, Robert Fripp was too busy to perform at the birthday party of the President of Estonia. Having written a forty minute set, and toured Estonia with it in 2007, The Humans have since released three albums.

We Are The Humans was released in 2009, with the follow-up Sugar Rush being released in 2009. The latest album, Strange Tales was released in March 2014. As they prepare for a six date tour of the UK to promote The Humans, Toyah is also busy with her own acoustic tour, she is heavily involved with The Flashback and Rewind Festivals, as well as working on a new Toyah Willcox album together with her successful acting career.

Taking time out from her busy life, she had a chat with Kevin Cooper, and this is what she had to say.

• Continue reading at UK Music Reviews.

Toyah was interviewed earlier today on Uckfield FM, discussing the forthcoming Toyah & The Humans UK Tour and much more.

Toyah Willcox needs little introduction having been a household name since the early 80s with platinum selling-albums, a string of top 40 UK hit singles and scores of prestigious screen and stage roles alongside Katharine Hepburn and Laurence Olivier.

The Humans is, of course, the transatlantic contemporary three-piece rock band comprising Toyah Willcox, Bill Rieflin and Chris Wong. Toyah & The Humans embark on a UK tour of six intimate concert dates this April starting in Uckfield on 11th April, 2015 at Trading Boundaries.

• Continue reading/listen to the interview at Uckfield FM.

A much expanded/reworked version of the recent ‘Frome Standard’ interview with Toyah, by Lisa Evans, was published yesterday by the Bath Chronicle.

After performing in Frome, former punk princess Toyah Willcox tells us why she loves Bath and why she owes her success to looking strange

Charismatic, outspoken and impossible to categorise, former punk princess Toyah Willcox is one of Britain’s iconic household names. When she visited Frome to perform at the Cheese and Grain this month, she told Lisa Evans why she adores Bath and why she owes her success to looking ‘strange’.

Toyah Willcox has always liked to surprise. She is, she admits, ‘a bit of an attention-seeker’ and was a rebellious extrovert who knew what she had to do to be noticed. During her 20s, with her shock of bright pink hair and unconventional outfits, she was the most outrageous and most successful punk rocker of her age, and she tells me that she thinks her alternative look was the reason she found success.

“I always wanted to be noticed,” says Toyah. “And, for me, dying my hair crazy colours and wearing different clothes from everyone else helped me to break free from the mould which women were put into at the time. I wanted to be different and not judged by the same book as everyone else was.

“And to be honest with you, if I hadn’t have looked a bit strange, I don’t think I would have been noticed in the first place. I owe my career to that colourful hair – I was a punk rocker at a time when no other woman was doing anything like that.”

• Continue reading at the Bath Chronicle.

Mysterious girl: Make a date with pop icon Toyah

As part of the ’80s post-punk New Wave scene, Toyah Willcox had considerable chart success with hits such as It’s A Mystery, I Want To Be Free and Brave New World and starred in movies such as Jubilee and Quadrophenia before turning to television and musical theatre.

Lisa Evans spoke to iconic colourful character before her Up Close And Personal tour comes to Frome’s Cheese and Grain on Friday, February 13.

“I’ve never performed in Frome before so I’m really excited to visit,” said Toyah. “I’ve heard it’s a brilliant venue and a stunning place I love coming to new places so this will be a treat.”

Her current show is a unique chance to experience Toyah up close and personal. A lively unplugged/storytellers style gig, it will include Toyah performing an acoustic set of her loved hit singles and classic songs, alongside recalling stories from her colourful, 35 year career with projections onto a big screen showing clips of films and videos that she has appeared in as she discusses the many famous people she has worked with and the anecdotes with the audience.

“I’ve always loved music and have always felt inspired to do it – it feels like it’s in my genes.”

• Continue reading at the Somerset Guardian. Also available at the Frome Standard: Toyah Willcox gets Up Close And Personal at Frome’s Cheese and Grain.

Another radio interview with Toyah today. She is guesting on Eleri Sions show on BBC Radio Wales this afternoon.

Eleri chats to Toyah Willcox ahead of her brand new tour and has her mind read live on air by a master magician.

• The programme can be listened to live at the BBC Radio Wales website, or after it airs at BBC iPlayer.

Toyah guested on Afternoon with Alison Fearns on BBC Radio Sussex yesterday.

She chatted about her career, The Humans, Bill Rieflin, the forthcoming (Humans) gig at Trading Boundaries in Uckfield, her childhood, keeping healthy and more.

• The interview begins approximately 2 hours 38 minutes into the programme and runs for around 10 minutes, ending with a play of These Boots Are Made For Walkin’. It’s available at BBC iPlayer for the next 27 days.