Dreamscape | The Toyah Willcox Fansite

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)

• Culture Whisper: From the royal box, the time-travelling Queen Elizabeth I (Toyah Willcox, who played pyromaniac teenager Mad in the the original film 40 years ago) lords over proceedings like a dutiful monarch at the Royal Variety Show – and make no mistake, Jubilee is as perfectly random as the Royal Variety. It wilfully defies all theatrical convention, addressing the audience and breaking the wall to provide a sneering commentary on its own construction – Continue reading at Culture Whisper…

• Boyz Magazine: However it is the presence of Toyah Willcox, an original cast member of the 1977 film, who plays Elizabeth I, that really gives this show weight. Her command of the role is extraordinary and as the show draws to a close its fitting that one of her own songs closes the proceedings. Crazy stuff! – Continue reading at Boyz Magazine…

• Essential Surrey: This provocative and theatrical show reinvents Jarman’s Jubilee for the present day, whilst clearly still clinging onto the punk subculture it was based on. Characterised by anti-establishment views and general anarchy, it is every bit as loud and aggressive as you would expect. The play opens in the same manner as the film with Queen Elizabeth I, starring original cast member Toyah Willcox, time travelling forward into a bleak and destitute contemporary Britain – Continue reading at Essential Surrey…

• Stage Review: In the film Toyah Willcox played angry rebel, Mad. Now the 59-year-old punk princess has been elevated to Queen Elizabeth I and she spends most of the production in the theatre’s royal box, watching the action on stage, occasionally breaking into monologues. The Queen is given a vision of the future, and its dystopian desolation initially fills her with pain, before she finds herself sympathising with the group’s radical social commentary – Continue reading at Stage Review…

• A Younger Theatre: Jubilee is superb in its metatheacricality, realising the elements of stagecraft present within Jarman’s film. The script cleverly observes the forty years of cultural change since ’77 and is playful in its interaction with members of the audience. It is absurd, with a peculiar, ravenous kind of beauty and it will leave you craving a cigarette lit by a blaze fiercer than hell on earth – Continue reading at A Younger Theatre…

• The Upcoming: Chris Goode’s stage adaptation of Derek Jarman and James Whaley’s cult classic punk film, Jubilee (1978), can only be described as a wild ride. Semi-plotless, kinky and violent, Jubilee the play is a vintage punk romp amended to include a far more diverse cast, and to rail against today’s troubling political climate, both at home and abroad. Indeed, it seems only natural to apply that old punk rage to 2018, and the violent dystopia that we’re presented with is often all too believable – Continue reading at The Upcoming…

The one lesson I’ve learned from life: Toyah Willcox on how you can have the same waist at 60 as you did when you were 23!

Toyah Willcox, 59, shot to fame in the Seventies as a punk singer and actress / She revealed how she spent the past three months overhauling her lifestyle / She says a tailored diet helped her lose weight and improved her energy levels

This year I turn 60, which seems astonishing to me. Yet I’ve never been much of a conformist and I see no reason to become a little old lady. I’ve realised each decade has its own purpose and, in anticipation of my seventh, I’ve spent the past three months overhauling my lifestyle.

Today I have the same waist measurement I had at 23. My energy levels are through the roof, which is good because I’m still playing festivals and I’m known for the energy of my performance. This time last year I felt very different. I was physically and mentally sluggish. I was neither as bright nor as quick as I used to be and I was unhappy with my body shape. But I don’t think it’s inevitable everything should thicken and sag, and I wasn’t willing to watch it happen.

So my husband and I decided to take control of the way we were ageing. We went to the Wildmoor Spa in Stratford to see a Harley Street specialist in DNA. We had ours closely analysed for dietary intolerances and genetic traits that influence the way we process food. Results in, we were given tailored diets to follow. It’s been a major commitment of both money and willpower. I’ve cut out wheat, dairy and all processed foods, but my husband has different rules, so though we cook together, we have different meals. At first, I lost weight because I couldn’t find much to eat, especially on restaurant menus. And I missed cake.

• Continue reading at the Daily Mail. (Photo © Clark Enwell/BackGrid)

• Toyah Live 2018: Browse Toyah’s official gig diary of confirmed concerts and appearances at toyahwillcox.com…

• Hertfordshire Mercury: Saffron Walden’s Audley End House to be transported back to the 80’s with Here and Now festival featuring Jason Donovan, Midge Ure and more: Jason Donovan, Midge Ure, Five Star, Hot Chocolate, Altered Images, T’Pau and Toyah Willcox will all play their hits during this extravaganza of 80’s pop music  – Continue reading at Hertfordshire Mercury…

• Bishop’s Stortford Independent: Stars of the 80s come out for summer concert at Audley End: Some of the most beloved pop music icons from the 1980s will come together for an open-air concert at Audley End House & Gardens this summer. Jason Donovan, Midge Ure, Five Star, Hot Chocolate, Altered Images, T’Pau and Toyah are the magnificent seven acts that make up the bill for Here And Now – Back To The 80s on Friday, July 13 – Continue reading at Bishop’s Stortford Independent…

• What’s On Darlington: PIMM Productions Showcase Evening ft. Toyah Willcox: Darlington Film Club hosts an evening showcasing short films from local award-winning film company PIMM Productions. Among the cast members in their new film is the one and only Toyah Willcox. Toyah will be joining the Q&A to discuss the film, as well as questions on her own career in film, TV and music – Continue reading at What’s On Darlington…

Over the May Bank Holiday weekend, we launch 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 also we’ll be exploring other genres outside the mainstream with special guests, previews and talks on a whole range of unusual genres and subgenres.

Confirmed Guests and Previews

Special Guest – Toyah Willcox. We are delighted to be welcoming actress and pop star Toyah Willcox to Paracinema and Derby Film Festival on Saturday 5th May to talk about her career appearing in classics like Derek Jarman’s Jubilee, The Tempest and the mod classic Quadrophenia as well as juggling a hugely successful pop career.

• Continue reading at Derby Quad. Visit the Derby Film Festival 2018 website here.

Mark Shenton: How do audiences and critics react when a show is designed to provoke them?

At the start of the second act of Jubilee, the stage version of Derek Jarman’s 1978 film that has transferred from Manchester’s Royal Exchange to the Lyric Hammersmith, one of the performers surveys the audience and notes that there have obviously been some early departures.

I was very nearly one of them. I decided that I would spare myself – and the show – the need to write a review (because it is of course a total no-no to do so after only seeing half a production). But, after leaving the theatre in the interval to get a little bit of sugar comfort, I went back.

After the show, I tweeted what a bad time I’d had, and my colleague Lyn Gardner replied: “Oh narrowly missed out on being in my top ten shows last year. I loved it.”

When I searched out her original review of that run, I found she cautioned: “Don’t think of leaving at the interval: the first half may drag a little, but the payoff is delivered in the show’s final 50 minutes, in which fierce energy gives way to aching loss as a generation with no future searches for a phoenix in the ashes.”

• Continue reading at The Stage.

The late Derek Jarman had a reputation as an iconic but iconoclastic filmmaker but, even by his standards, Jubilee was eccentric and frequently any meanings were too deeply buried for common or garden viewers to mine. It is now probably best remembered for a cast that included punk idols Toyah Willcox and Adam Ant, along with a dedicated team from the acting profession amongst whom was the late Ian Charleson.

40 years on, Chris Goode has taken the original film script, which Jarman wrote with James Whaley, and updated it for a fresh generation. Give the new writer-director credit, what should have been an unintelligible, unruly mess is always over the top, frequently rather fun and conveys some timely messages to its audience today.

Many of those present will not even have been born in the days when punk threatened to change British society forever. Like Queen Elizabeth, whose pontifications along with those of her alchemist and necromancer John Dee and ethereal Ariel frame the modern scenes, it is merely a short historical note that may well have passed them by.

In a happy connection with the original, punk Queen Toyah Willcox embodies the Virgin Queen having played Mad on celluloid so long ago. She also provides one of the evening’s highlights with a brief but lively rendition of “I Want to Be Free”.

• Continue reading at British Theatre Guide. Review by Philip Fisher.

A fiercely powerful staging of Derek Jarman’s punk classic

People have been pontificating on what punk is – if it’s sold out, if it’s dead – pretty much since it showed up. So I’m not going to join them. Except to say that if anyone’s keeping the ripped Union Jack flag flying, it’s got to be queer people of colour who are risking everything to live outside the rules of a heteronormative, post-Brexit society. Chris Goode’s play, transferring to Lyric Hammersmith after opening at Royal Exchange Manchester, gets this. He reimagines Derek Jarman’s 1978 punk cult movie ‘Jubilee’ just enough to make it speak to today, but leaves its wild nihilist momentum intact.

It’s set in a squat (although this being 2018, it’s probably a warehouse share) where the cast bicker, wheel a pram on fire around, violently demolish the patriarchy, rewrite history, and watch YouTube videos. Travis Alabanza (playing Amyl Nitrate, the group’s historian) brings us up to speed on this show’s world, and pretty much anticipates every possible criticism of it: ‘Welcome to ‘Jubilee’. An iconic film most of you have never even heard of, adapted by an Oxbridge twat for a dying medium, spoiled by millennials, ruined by diversity, and constantly threatening to go all interactive. You poor fuckers.’

• Continue reading at Time Out. Review by Alice Saville.