Dreamscape | The Toyah Willcox Fansite

Toyah guested on Richard Green’s BBC Radio Devon show on Saturday.

Faye from Steps, The Retro Hour features Howard Jones, Toyah and Brother Beyond.

Toyah talks Posh Pop and more, with the interview beginning around 2hr 10m into the show and runs for around 10 minutes. There were plays of I Want To Be Free and Space Dance, the latter of which Toyah chose to be played on the show.

• Listen to the show/interview for the next four weeks at BBC Sounds.

Toyah is interviewed in the latest issue (523, October 2021) of Record Collector magazine.

“I thought I was part of the movement, but the movement never accepted me.”

Re-energised by a long overdue reissue campaign of her early music and the release of Posh Pop, her first album for 13 years, Toyah talks to RC523 issue

ISSUE NO: 523
Exclusive features include:

THE TOP 200 RARITIES IN THE WORLD TODAY – You read about the 200 rarest and most valuable collectable records in the UK in these pages last year. Now we’re looking further afield for hard-to-find vinyl,
this time scattered across the globe. Warning: may require second mortgages
TOYAH – As her early albums are finally reissued, Ms Willcox talks punk, punching Adam Ant and lockdown celebrity
THE WHO – A pictorial potted history of the mod pioneers, from beat pop riot boys to still-windmilling Britrock royalty
WANDA JACKSON – The queen of 50s rockabilly and contemporary of Elvis and Johnny Cash is still going strong – but is her new album to be her swansong?
STEPHEN DUFFY – The mercurial folk-pop songwriter retraces his early days in neglected Brum post-punks The Hawks
FAUST – The “Dada Beatles” early output still sounds thrillingly unhinged 50 years on. We hear about its suitably anarchic evolution from four of those who lived to tell the tale

• Record Collector magazine, Issue 523 is on sale now!

Toyah on dyslexia breakthrough: ‘Learning an instrument broadened and deepened my communicative skills’

According to the singer, music lessons helped “rewire” her brain and have helped improve “broaden and deepen” her communicative skills.

Learning to play guitar and keyboards led to a huge breakthrough in Toyah’s lifelong struggle with dyslexia.

The Summer of Love hitmaker was diagnosed with the learning difficulty at a young age, which can cause problems with reading, writing and spelling.

Speaking exclusively with Retro Pop ahead of the release of her latest album ‘Posh Pop’, Toyah reflects on the profound impact lockdown had on her, both personally and professionally, and reveals lessons in piano and guitar have enhanced her life in numerous ways.

“I can now play guitar, I can now play keyboards, and it means that my communicative skills are much broader and much deeper,” she explains.

• Continue reading at Retro Pop. Read Retro Pop’s review of Posh Pop.

Toyah guested on Mike Sweeney’s BBC Radio Manchester show earlier today, talking about Posh Pop, Sunday Lunch and more.

There were plays of I Want To Be Free and Levitate during the interview, which aired in two parts.

Toyah Willcox (01/09/2021)
Mike chats to singer, Toyah Willcox, about her Posh Pop Tour 2021.

• Listen on Catch Up at BBC Sounds for the next few weeks.

A few screen caps from Toyah’s guest appearance on BBC Breakfast this morning. There were bursts of It’s A Mystery, Thunder In The Mountains (both Top Of The Pops performances), Levitate, and Zoom Zoom. Toyah talked about Posh Pop, You Tube, Sunday Lunch and much more! See a clip from the interview at BBC Breakfast‘s Twitter.

Toyah guests on Janice Long’s BBC Radio Wales show this Bank Holiday Monday evening. For an exclusive chat about the album Posh Pop. The show airs from 7pm.

BBC Radio Wales: Janice Long: Monday 30th Aug: 7pm
Join Janice for brilliant songs from the 60’s right through to today. Janice also introduces fresh new music and artists from Wales.

• Listen online at the BBC Radio Wales website, and on Catch Up, post-airing, at BBC Sounds. **Update: BBC Radio Wales just tweeted: Tonight Janice’s special guest is singer, actor and writer Toyah. Toyah will be in after 8 to talk about her excellent new album Posh Pop.

Toyah guests on BBC Breakfast tomorrow to talk about the album Posh Pop. The programme airs on BBC1 from 6am, and runs for just over three hours.

BBC Breakfast: BBC1: Tuesday 31st August: 6am
The latest news, sport, business and weather from the BBC’s Breakfast team.

• Watch as it airs on BBC1, or post-broadcast, on Catch Up at BBC iPlayer.

NB. This news was announced by Official Toyah with another, previously unseen online, new Posh Pop photo. (Photo © Toyah Willcox)

“This issue, we also talk to Toyah who is back with a career-best LP, the brilliant Posh Pop.”

The latest issue of Classic Pop magazine (Sep/Oct 2021 – Issue 71) is out now, and features Toyah on the cover and a new Posh Pop interview… “I was just exploding with ideas”.

The issue also includes Soft Cell, Toyah, Shaun Ryder, Blondie, Goldfrapp, Tony Hadley, Saint Etienne, Tony Arnold, The Blue Nile (from Glasgow and one of my favourite bands!) and much more!

• See the promo tweet here, and full details on how to buy Classic Pop are here.

Toyah: ‘In the ‘80s I was treated like an icon, now I know what it’s like living pay packet to pay packet’

Toyah is back with ‘Posh Pop’, her 16th album and first since 2008’s ‘In The Court of the Crimson Queen’

The record features 10 brand new compositions, co-written and produced by Simon Darlow, after the singer and her husband, King Crimson’s Robert Fripp, found themselves without work during lockdown.

Ahead of her latest release, the ’80s superstar opens up on her new music and accompanying visual project, revealing how the album was born, becoming a YouTube sensation with ‘Toyah and Robert’s Sunday Lunch’, and how living “pay packet to pay packet” has brought the singer closer than ever to her fans.

It’s been 13 years since you released your last album ‘In The Court of the Crimson Queen’. How did ‘Posh Pop’ come about?

To give it context, the majority of ‘In The Court of the Crimson Queen’ was written in 2007. Around 2017, every song on that album was placed in a musical called ‘Crime and Punishment’ at London’s Tower Bridge Scoop Theatre. This allowed us to get an official release in 2018 and that’s when Simon Darlow and I added Dance in the Hurricane and Who Let the Beast Out?.

What happened with ‘Posh Pop’ is the extraordinary experience of all of our live shows being cancelled or postponed until a later date. Having all this time doesn’t mean that you stop being a creative human being. So we found a way of being able to write and to do the next album, and lockdown enabled us to do that in a very strange way.

• Continue reading at Retro Pop. Posh Pop is released on Friday. Pre-order the album here.

A great interview with Toyah on today’s Steve Wright In The Afternoon show on BBC Radio 2. This included plays of two previously unheard songs from Posh Pop.

Toyah talked about the recording process of Posh Pop, what inspired the album, and about loving being back on the road touring, playing festivals and gigs.

There were plays of I Want To Be Free, It’s A Mystery, Levitate, The Bride Will Return, and a short burst of Rhythm In My House at the close of the chat.

Steve enthused about Toyah having such a longtime career yet still releasing such quality music. He also mentioned Toyah’s legendary warehouse, Mayhem!

Toyah also talked about her latest film work, on, the just released, To Be Someone and, the to be released in October, The Ghosts Of Borley Rectory.

• Listen to the show/interview at BBC Sounds. Toyah appears approximately 2hrs 30m into the show. (Photos © Toyah Willcox)

Toyah guested on Sky News this morning, talking about her new album, Posh Pop, and more. Here are some screen caps from the programme. Click on them to view larger versions. (Thanks to Dean Beadle for the caps).

Toyah is guesting on Steve Wright’s BBC Radio 2 show tomorrow afternoon. The show airs for three hours, beginning at 2pm

With guests Toyah Willcox and Shaun Evans
Toyah’s album is called Posh Pop, and Shaun Evans is starring in the BBC One drama Vigil as well as returning for an 8th series of Endeavour on ITV. Plus there’s Factoids, the Non-Stop Oldies and the latest entertainment and lifestyle news.

• Listen live at the website or post-airing at BBC Sounds.

Toyah Willcox: the day I found out there was a killer in my family

At 63, the punk icon learned that her grandfather was a murderer. She opens up on how it answered so many questions about her childhood

For all of us, the first lockdown last year was difficult. But for Toyah Willcox, it was unfathomably challenging….

• Continue reading at The Telegraph. A subscription is required to read this interview past the preview. (Photo © The Telegraph)

Toyah Willcox is an English musician, actress and TV presenter. From fronting a band to releasing solo music, there is little that she hasn’t done across a four-decade career

My childhood was definitely privileged. We had hot water, heating, food, we had our own home, and I went to a private school.

Having a limp, dyslexia and a lisp. I wasn’t even aware of it. I was having a perfectly happy childhood until people pointed out that I had a physical difference to everyone else in the room. Then, when I was sitting my 11-plus people realised that I was not on the same page as everyone else because of dyslexia. Alan Sugar, Richard Branson—you could name a thousand people who have exactly the same experience as me and we’re doing perfectly well. I have such a wonderful life. I have overcome so much.

I wouldn’t say that that specifically made me tougher. What made me tougher was being the only woman in the music industry. My way of learning, my way of working, means that I have to just be a little bit ahead of everyone else. And I think any woman in acting or music would say, “I feel the same too.” You never arrive.

• Continue reading at the Reader’s Digest.

BBC Music Introducing in Hereford & Worcester, had tea with Toyah. The multi-million selling singer/songwriter, author and actress invited them to chew the fat at her place. This aired last Sunday (15th August). Listen to the interview by clicking below.

Toyah guests on BBC Radio Hereford & Worcester’s Tammy Gooding show tomorrow afternoon for “Tammy’s Big Toyah Willcox Interview”. The show airs from 2 – 6pm. Toyah has previously guested on Tammy’s radio show a number of times over the past few years, most recently in March 2020.

Tomorrow’s Toyah interview will most likely centre around the new album, Posh Pop, which is released in just two week’s time (Friday 27th August). Pre-order Posh Pop here.

BBC Hereford & Worcester: Tammy Gooding: Friday 13th August: 2pm
Tammy’s big Toyah Willcox interview. What you need to know where you live on a Fantastic Friday with Tammy.

• Listen live at their BBC website or post-airing at BBC Sounds.

A new interview with Toyah at Wickham Festival 2021. Watch below or at You Tube.

New from the NME! One of the most interesting Toyah interviews/features for a long time…

In Does Rock ‘N’ Roll Kill Braincells?!, we quiz an artist on their own career to see how much they can remember – and find out if the booze, loud music and/or tour sweeties has knocked the knowledge out of them

1 You starred in Derek Jarman’s 1978 punk film Jubilee. Upon its release, who created a protest T-shirt deeming it “the most boring and therefore disgusting film”?
“Vivienne Westwood!”

CORRECT.

“I got one right! I’m so happy! Derek Jarman, the director, was thrilled by that (Laughs). When we started pre-production, people were behind the film, but then the punk world felt it was going to be exploitative. Derek Jarman was special and had no compromise. He saw talent in everyone and everything. Working with him on Jubilee, I quickly became aware that I was being catapulted from nowhere into the glitterati of this new movement and I immediately knew it was special.”

Ever run into Vivienne Westwood?

“I actually did some modelling for Vivienne. She probably wouldn’t have known it was me, but I did some modelling for TV at her shop [Sex] which was great fun. I got John Lydon through the screen test for Quadrophenia. Franc Roddam, its director, asked me to go over to Johnny Rotten’s apartment, learn two scenes with him, and accompany him to the studio to do the screen test for the role of Jimmy. He was an absolute gentleman and a brilliant actor, but nobody would touch Johnny because they felt he was unpredictable.”

You’ve acted with some big names including Katharine Hepburn and Laurence Oliver…

“Laurence Olivier was quite old when I worked with him [on the 1984 TV movie The Ebony Tower] and not terribly well so we could only shoot with him three hours a day, but he burnt brighter than anyone I’d ever met. He was a rebel and wonderfully naughty. I used to have supper with him in the evenings and was told not to let him drink – and we’d get through six bottles of champagne and he could still keep going! My first professional job was at the National Theatre so to be acting with him in a movie was thrilling.”

• Continue reading at the NME.

Toyah on being a woman in punk in the 1980s, her new album, and the Sunday Lunch sensation

This is Unscripted – a podcast brought to you by ITV News Arts Editor Nina Nannar. In each episode, Nina speaks to a leading name from the world of arts and entertainment.

Her guests talk about their life and work, plus Nina asks them where they see themselves in five years.

On Unscripted this week, Nina is joined by eighties icon Toyah.

Toyah talks life in the music industry as a woman in punk in the 1980s – and challenging the business now 40 years later.

She chats to Nina about her new album Posh Pop.

And, of course, the pair chat about Toyah and Robert’s Sunday Lockdown Lunch – the internet sensation that sprung up in lockdown imagined by the singer and her husband, guitarist Robert Fripp.

• Continue reading/Listen to the interview at ITV News.

Toyah chats to Mark Ellen and David Hepworth (of Smash Hits/Q magazines and Whistle Test) for Word In Your Ear. Watch it now at You Tube by clicking below.

Toyah guested on BBC Midlands Today yesterday evening. Discussing Posh Pop and much more.

Interviewer, Ben Sidwell tweeted: I’ve spent the morning at home with the lovely Toyah talking about lockdown videos, gaining millions of new fans & her brand new album ‘Posh Pop’. Great cup of tea too! Hear what Toyah has to say on BBC Midlands Today. (Photo © Ben Sidwell/BBC)