Toyah Willcox turns 60: Singer looks unrecognisable in series of racy unearthed snaps
Toyah Willcox is celebrating her 60th birthday today and throwback pictures of the singer show her looking a world away from her present appearance.
Across the multi-talented star’s 40-year career, she has scored 12 charting singles, recorded 24 albums, appeared in 40 stage plays, 20 films and has written two books. In one unearthed snap, the singer was captured mid-performing in 1997 play Cabaret, one of her most memorable stage appearances.
• Continue reading at the Express for some great photos and utterly ridiculous “journalism”.
Music: Toyah Returns With New EP ‘Four from Toyah’
Legendary British pop-rocker Toyah Willcox releases brand new EP, Four from Toyah (Birthday Edition) on May 18th. This marks Toyah’s long-awaited return to solo recording – with her last recordings being 2008’s In the Court of the Crimson Queen LP and 2011’s 21st Century Supersister .
The EP includes four new and previously unreleased songs written by Toyah and Simon Darlow. These include…
1. Telepathic Lover 2. Who Let The Beast Out 3. Fire Escape 4. Our Hearts Still Beat
Of course, true to fashion, Toyah will also delight fans with typically stunning artwork which you can see below.
• Continue reading at Culture Fix.
Toyah Willcox and her band stop by Guildford’s Bonaparte Records shop
Take a trip back to the 1980s, when record shops were 10 a penny, and post-punk visited Guildford
Post-punk singer and actress Toyah Willcox and her band members paid a visit to the Bonaparte Records shop in Phoenix Court, Guildford, prior to playing a gig at the Civic Hall later that night, on May 29 1980.
Toyah, who was only 22 at the time, was signing copies of the band’s new single Ieya, from the album The Blue Meaning.
The shop was crowded with fans of post-punk, who who were pushing towards the counter, where Toyah and her band were signing albums and singles. Later, the band posed for photos outside, before heading off to sound check at the Civic Hall, where they were to play that night.
• Continue reading at Get Surrey.
• Kaleidoscope Man: Toyah was in the dubbing studio for K-Man last week – See her tweet…
• Kaleidoscope Man: Browse our K-Man news archive here…
• The Comet: Cameras roll in Stevenage restaurant for feature-length film: Voodoo Productions, based in Luton, have been filming feature-length psychological thriller Heckle at Misya in Stevenage High Street. The film, about a stand-up comedian who gets heckled during a performance and goes mad, stars Hollywood legend Clark Gable’s grandson, also named Clark Gable, Danny Dyer’s daughter – called Dani Dyer – Nicholas Vince of Hellraiser, and singer and actress Toyah Willcox – Continue reading at The Comet…
• Heckle: Toyah has a role in another new film, Heckle – See her tweet…
There’s just over a week until Toyah’s 60th Birthday – Dreamscape is counting up to the day with some retro content – Here’s a great Q&A with Toyah from Scotland On Sunday, June 2007. Click below to zoom and read.
The Birmingham singer and actress will play The Slade Rooms on a tour celebrating her 40 years in music.
Toyah, from Kings Heath, is best known for songs such as It’s A Mystery, I Want To Be Free and Ieya. She will play the city centre venue on November 2.
• Continue reading at the Express & Star. More info on all four “Birthday” concerts here.
Over the sound of ripping wax-strips, nail drills, clippers and trimmers, Toyah Willcox invites us to eavesdrop on usually private conversations taking place in hair and beauty salons across the UK.
We drop in on appointments at Totally Polished in Blackpool, The Topiary Salon in Basingstoke, Smith Hair Studio in Edmonton and Not Another Salon in London’s East End.
From holidays and bingo wins, to hospital appointments and bereavements – customers relish the opportunity to swap stories, gossip and enjoy an hour’s escape from the stresses of daily life. Beauticians and hairdressers are trusted confidantes, privy to shocking secrets, but they also provide an independent ear and a comforting shoulder to cry on.
For Toyah’s friend and hairdresser to the stars, Keith Wainwright MBE, a trip to the salon is also an important source of physical and social contact in an increasingly online world.
According to industry reports, women and men of all ages and means are spending increasing amounts of time, and money, at hair and beauty salons in the UK. British consumers spent an estimated 1.89 billion pounds on salon services in the last quarter of 2017. We find out why. A Just Radio production for BBC Radio 4
• Continue reading at BBC Media Centre.
Rita Ora will be sending temperatures soaring in Henley, Lionel Richie promises a mean time in Greenwich while Chris Evans revs up the crowds at Carfest. It’s Event’s guide to the HOTTEST festivals of summer – Rock & Pop
Audley End House and Gardens
The Heritage Live series at the Jacobean mansion in Essex hosts Jess Glynne, Toyah Willcox, 2Cellos, Ella Eyre, X Factor winner Louisa and more over three days.
Let the music wash over you as you take in the house’s handsome Capability Brown-designed gardens.
Day tickets from £39. Saffron Walden, Essex, Jul 13-15, ticketline.co.uk/heritage-live-concerts
• Continue reading at the Daily Mail. Browse our other Toyah at Here and Now Audley End 2018 news. (Photo © Toyah Willcox)
• Rock The Rec: Toyah Willcox headlines, on Saturday 21st July, with her full live electric band. You can expect to hear hit singles: Good Morning Universe, It’s A Mystery, I Want To Be Free, Thunder In The Mountains, Brave New World and Rebel Run – Continue reading…
• Derby City Council: Derby Film Festival 2018 – special guests, film previews and events in QUAD: Toyah Willcox will be in Conversation in QUAD on Saturday 5th May at 5:00pm. Both Jubilee (15) and The Tempest (15) will be screened as part of the festival on 8th & 9th and 9th & 10th May respectively – Continue reading…
• Lively and Late: Toyah appearing at Thoresby Hall Hotel on Saturday 20 October 2018: 80s Festival with the fabulous Toyah, plus And Finally… Phil Collins, Jayne Middleton as Annie Lennox, Jasun Watkins is The Voice of Boy George and more, with a DJ both evenings – Continue reading…
• Bristol 247: Queer icon David Hoyle discusses Blackpool, BHS and binaries: In those formative years, Hoyle says he was influenced by contemporary performers like Siouxsie Sioux, Toyah, and David Bowie as well as classic stars like Bette Davis and Liza Minelli. He rose to notoriety in London in the ‘80s but since then, what changes has Hoyle noticed? – Continue reading…
• Visit Derby: DFF/Paracinema: Toyah Willcox In Conversation: It is hard to imagine a more perfect guest for the eclectic nature of Paracinema than Toyah Willcox – Continue reading…
Derby Film Festival returns from May 4-13 with a host of special guests, film previews and events, as well as over 50 feature films.
Guests include actress and singer Toyah Willcox, Sir John Hurt’s widow Anwen Hurt who will introduce a preview screening of That Good Night, Hurt’s final leading role and Mandie Fletcher, who will discuss her career in film and television, directing classics of British television, from Butterflies, to Blackadder, Only Fools And Horses, Desmond’s, Absolutely Fabulous and Miranda, and the big screen, with Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie in 2016.
• Continue reading at Belper News. Browse more Toyah at Derby Film Festival news.
Tickets about to go on sale for Devizes Arts Festival
Tickets for this year’s Devizes Arts Festival go on sale on Monday (23) and chairman Margaret Bryant promise of something to suit everyone is likely to be kept.
The festival which runs from May 31 to June 17 is a unique mix of the sublime to the ridiculous with plenty in between.
The following couple of weeks will keep up the variety but many will be looking forward to welcoming Toyah to the Corn Exchange on the final Saturday (June 16) when the former punk princess will perform in the Corn Exchange from 8pm. In keeping with her punk roots this will be a standing only performance so people can sing and dance along to hits such as Good Morning Universe, Thunder In The Mountains and It’s A Mystery.
Tickets can be booked at devizesartsfestival.org.uk or at Devizes Books.
• Continue reading at the Gazette & Herald. (Photo © Nicola Salt/Gazette & Herald)
There’s a great photo of Toyah included in The Argus’ “Nostalgia” feature by The Timeout Team, published yesterday by the East Sussex newspaper.
Nostalgia: Multi-million record selling music icons in concert
Some of the world’s biggest music stars have graced the stage in Sussex over the years.
Other stars featured in today’s Timeout include Toyah Willcox, who is pictured playing a gig in the city in 1991.
• Continue reading at The Argus. NB: The photo included in the feature is Toyah onstage in 1982 on The Changeling Tour.
Bury Pride 2018: Town celebrates equality and diversity
Rainbow flags flew proudly across the town centre as the march towards equality continued at Bury Pride.
Hundreds of people turned out at the town hall draped in the familiar colours to celebrate diversity event during its second year.
The day began with the seventh Walking Rainbow parade through the streets before guests were treated to an array of musical performances and speeches, including from singer and actress Toyah Willcox, who headlined the show.
The outdoor stage also hosted The Manchester Gay and Lesbian Chorus, Divas in Denial, fire eaters and Utopia UK, who were all compèred by Miss Sal Ford.
And LGBT groups and other organisations set up stalls and chatted to people about the day.
Bury Pride was launched last year with the aim of bringing people out on to the streets to celebrate equality and diversity.
• Continue reading – see more photos, and watch a short clip of Toyah performing today – at Bury Times.
• Earlier Toyah tweeted: “On my way to BURY PRIDE….the band are on at 5pm to close the day with TOYAH HITS and fun, fun, fun!” (Photo © Nigel Taggart/Bury Times)
Blu-ray: Derek Jarman Collection, Vol One 1972-1986
Voyage through an alchemical universe: the magical realm of a flawed English genius
This BFI boxset of Derek Jarman films from the first phase of his career, brilliantly curated by William Fowler, is an exemplary package: a treasure trove of extras accompanies his first six features, here presented in re-mastered form, and a thorough, well-illustrated and thought-provoking 80-page booklet with extensive material about the films and a wealth of essays.
The collection makes it possible to follow the evolution of Jarman as a film-maker, always riding the wave of creative and mould-breaking adventure, from the mysteries of In the Shadow of the Sun (1981), a film that built on much of Jarman’s super-8mm footage from the 1970s, the controversial Sebastiane (1976), through to the explosive punk-inspired politics of Jubilee (1978), followed by The Tempest (1979), surely one of the best adaptations of Shakespeare on film, the avant-garde rigour and homo-erotic delirium of The Angelic Conversation (1985), and the assured and more straightforward account of the rebellious life of the painter Caravaggio.
• Continue reading at The Arts Desk. Read further info on this release here.
On Monday 12 March we had the pleasure to interview one of our new patrons of The Old Rep Theatre, singer and actress Toyah Willcox. Toyah was born in Kings Heath, Birmingham back in 1958. She attended the Old Rep Drama School in the 1970’s which later helped shape her acting career. We wanted to find out a little more about her life at The Old Rep, late night chats with Sir Laurence Olivier and becoming a Brummie legend.
Your first experience of theatre was at The Old Rep. What was it like for you as a girl of just 17?
Actually I was 14. The head commissioner of BBC Pebble Mill said to my parents that he felt I would do better if I was at drama school. And he voted me in to The Old Rep theatre school at weekends. So I joined when I was 14, and it was a very, very exciting building to be in, and I think purely because it smelt like theatre. It was one of the very few buildings still remaining but actually had that very unique smell about it, and I think it’s something to do with dust and costumes, and old grease paint. But it had an incredible atmosphere.
Who also attended The Old Rep drama school at the same time?
Oh gosh… Dona Croll. Dona is a very well established Black actress, phenomenally successful, we went to the school at the same time. But that is the only actress I currently know who is still currently working. I had lots of friends obviously at that time, but they didn’t really stay in the business.
• Continue reading at The Old Rep Theatre.
Toyah, tributes and a legend this April at Artrix.
R&B legend Georgie Fame, pop icon Toyah Willcox and a great selection of tribute acts are amongst the highlights for music fans at Bromsgrove’s Artrix Arts Centre this April.
Saturday 28th April sees household name and pop icon Toyah Willcox come to Artrix with her Acoustic, Up Close & Personal Tour. This lively, entertaining and revealing show comes in the form of Toyah performing an unplugged set of her well-loved hits, alongside recalling stories from her colourful thirty-five year career.
• Continue reading at The Birmingham Press. Visit toyahwillcox.com for all confirmed 2018 dates and appearances in Toyah’s Official Gig Diary.
Over the May Bank Holiday weekend, QUAD launches the first edition of Paracinema, a festival dedicated to films and genres outside of the mainstream. Expect a steady diet of horror, sci-fi and fantasy but in addition to this Paracinema will be exploring other genres outside the mainstream with special guests, previews and talks on a whole range of unusual genres and subgenres.
Toyah Willcox In Conversation
Saturday 5th May at 5:00pm
It is hard to imagine a more perfect guest for the eclectic nature of Paracinema than Toyah Willcox. After gaining positive notices for her debut in the television play Glitter in 1976, Toyah then played the anarchic role of Mad in Derek Jarman’s seminal punk film Jubilee . From there she went on to appear alongside Katherine Hepburn in the TV movie The Corn Is Green, in the mod classic Quadrophenia as Monkey and reteamed with Jarman in his Shakespeare adaptation The Tempest. Genre fans should note her role in the John Mills starring Quatermass series, BBC TV Movie Dr Jeykll and Mr Hyde and Tales Of The Unexpected. Since that early-mid 80s boom, Toyah has gone to appear as Miss Scarlett in the Cluedo TV Series, as Billie Piper’s mum in The Secret Diary Of A Call Girl, and in children’s TV series The Ink Thief. Recently she appeared in the genre defying Aaaaaaaah! by director Steve Oram and alongside Gabriel Byrne and Harvey Keitel in Lies We Tell.
We are excited to welcome Toyah to Paracinema for an on-stage discussion of her screen career.
• Continue reading at Derby QUAD. Visit Toyah’s 2018 Gig Diary at toyahwillcox.com for all confirmed dates and appearances.
Celebrate as the Pride of Bury comes to town
The second Bury Pride takes place on Saturday 7 April and promises to be another fun-packed celebration of diversity.
Pop icon Toyah Willcox is the headline attraction on this colourful occasion which features music, food, entertainment and a walking rainbow through the town centre. Tickets for Bury Pride are free and are available at www.bury.gov.uk/BuryPride, where you can also download the Pride Programme with all the information about the sponsors and the activities during the day.
The main stage, outside Bury Town Hall: Headlining will be Toyah Willcox who will be performing with a full band. The outdoor stage will also host the Manchester Gay and Lesbian Chorus, Divas in Denial, Laura Jane Butler as Amy Winehouse and fire eaters Utopia UK, all compered by our host Miss Sal Ford.
• Continue reading at Bury Council – My News Desk. Visit Toyah’s 2018 Gig Diary at toyahwillcox.com for all confirmed dates and appearances.
24 influential women who make you proud to be from the Midlands
A century after women first won the right to vote in the UK here’s a look at some of those who inspire us from Birmingham and the West Midlands
What have you done today to make you feel proud? Well reading this list could be a start. It’s International Women’s Day 2018 today and we wanted to acknowledge some of the influential Midlands women who inspire us the most.
Leading columnists, athletes, hugely successful songwriters, doctors, innovators, scientists and more. Our list intentionally misses out serving MPs and politicians – although many are deserving of praise.
Toyah Willcox: from Kings Heath, is a singer with a career spanning more than thirty years. Known for her shocking hair and individual style.
Willcox has enjoyed eight Top 40 singles, released over 20 albums, written two books, appeared in 40 stage plays and 10 films. She has also presented numerous television shows. Between 1977 and 1983 she fronted the band Toyah, before going solo. She has a star on the Kings Heath Walk of Fame.
• Continue reading at the Birmingham Mail. (Photo © Birmingham Mail)
NO FUTURE: Brendan Macdonald reviews Chris Goode’s stage version of Derek Jarman’s Jubilee
“It’s funny isn’t it? In 1977, someone shouting NO FUTURE sounded like the most extreme nihilistic punk. Forty years on, it’s a fact. It’s mainstream climate science.”
As Amyl Nitrate (played by Travis Alabanza) perceives, ‘NO FUTURE’ was once a rallying cry of the punk movement, not just a closing refrain to a Sex Pistols anthem. It spoke of a stark fatalism imbued with fury, frustration, and a deep distrust in the current status quo. Chris Goode’s adaptation of Derek Jarman’s 1978 film Jubilee toys with this articulation, hurtling the punk movement into a future that seemingly shouldn’t exist, to see how it survives.
Goode’s adaptation spars with Jarman’s film, keeping faithful to the central tenets of the piece while modernizing it to reflect the current age. It’s messy, chaotic, sex-fueled, and driven more by affect than narrative. Queen Elizabeth I, brilliantly played by one of the film’s original stars Toyah Willcox, travels to the present day with the help of Lucy Ellinson’s Ariel, and passively witnesses the countercultural energy that’s brewing beneath 21st century neoliberal consumerism.
• Continue reading at Exeunt Magazine. Read Exeunt Magazine’s review of Jubilee at Royal Exchange, Manchester, here.
Chris Goode’s riotous adaptation of Derek Jarman’s seminal film about anarchy in the UK is not for the faint hearted. Featuring simulated sex, unrestrained nudity and mindless acts of violence, this provocative stage version will undoubtedly divide audiences, just as Jarman did in 1978.
Toyah Willcox, who starred as the pyromaniac Mad in the film version, now plays Queen Elizabeth I observing the excesses of a group of friends sharing a squat in Brexit Britain.
Amyl Nitrate (an electrifying performance by Travis Alabanza) serves as our emcee for the evening. Sexual predator Crabs (Rose Wardlaw) lures unsuspecting men home where they often meet a brutal and untimely end, while Bod (Sophie Stone) is the murderous de facto leader of the gang, Ariel, an ethereal presence (Lucy Ellinson), links segments and time.
• Continue reading at the New Camden Journal. (Review by Lucy Popescu)
