Dreamscape | The Toyah Willcox Fansite

Former punk princess Toyah Willcox will perform an intimate evening of acoustic music this weekend.

Her concert at Derby Cathedral on Saturday, August 27, will raise money for the upkeep of the cathedral. Toyah has racked up eight top 40 singles during her career. She rose to fame through hits such as It’s A Mystery and Thunder in the Mountains. She is also a popular actress.

Tickets £18 and £22.50. Visit www.ticketsource.co.uk,

• Continue reading at Belper News.

Torrential rain is about as welcome at a 80s summer festival as a wasp in your leg-warmers. But when rain soaked the Rewind Festival South crowd every day, forcing them to cover up their colourful costumes, a true disco fever helped to revive their dampened spirits.

Other upbeat acts included the ever-exuberant Leo Sayer who at 68 danced around the stage to songs like You Make Me Feel Like Dancing, with the energy of someone half his age.

And it was certainly a mystery to the audience how Toyah, who sang hits like I Want To Be Free, retains her youthful good looks.

Ringing in the changes at Rewind South for the first time ever was Erasure’s flamboyant Andy Bell who headlined on Saturday night. The Henley crowd were treated to classics like Sometimes and Respect as Andy dazzled the audience in his sequinned shorts.

• Continue reading at Music-News.

Dig out the kagoul; London’s open-air theatre is worth risking the rain for

Read our round-up of open-air theatre events for the summer ahead. You’ll find London’s best outdoor productions at venues as world-famous as Shakespeare’s Globe, in parks as pretty as Regent’s Park or at festivals as vibrant as More London Free Festival. Not sure what you’ll need for an open-air theatre trip? Then don’t miss our guide to all the practical open-air theatre info you could need.

Crime and Punishment – A Rock Musical: Toyah Willcox adapts Dostoyevsky’s classic in a free outdoor musical

Er. Well look, if a musical version of Dostoyevsky’s 1866 masterpiece about a student who wrestles with his guilt after killing a moneylender – with songs by Toyah Willcox no less – were announced for the West End we’d probably break out into cold sweats pretty sharpish.

• Continue reading at Time Out.

Did you make it to the Rewind Festival last weekend? Muddy Stilettos was hanging out with the stars (*cough*), or at the very least, performing aerial rugby-tackles on any Eighties icons close enough to assault.

And look what we have here! Only the brilliant Toyah Willcox, with barely a bruise on her. Anyone who was old enough to take ‘O’ levels, chainsmoke multi-coloured ciggies or borrow their brother’s Chopper bike will remember Toyah – the dyed-to-a-cinder hair, the multi-coloured make up, and the impossibly catchy It’s a Mystery to I Want to Be Free.

She lives in Pershore (just south of Worcester, geography meisters) and these days aside from trilling and actiing for her living, the Eighties pocket rocket also loves to read, make her own jewellery (that masterpiece around her neck in the photo above, she created that) and, well, read on to find out more…

• Continue reading at Muddy Stilettos. Browse all of Dreamscape’s Rewind South 2016 news.

Toyah Willcox and Cockney Rebel to perform at Secret World festival

Punk icon Toyah Willcox and rock legends Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel will perform on stage at a new music festival near Burnham-On-Sea this September.

Somerset’s newest festival, Music in the Meadow, will take place at Secret World Wildlife Rescue in East Huntspill on 10th September. It will also feature Yeovil bands Storm and Daytona, Castle Cary’s A Cunning Plan, the Twerzels (the West Country’s finest Wurzels tribute band) and Luna-C from Wedmore.

Event organiser Keith Weston told Burnham-On-Sea.com: “We’re so excited to have these great local bands playing at our first ever music festival. There’s a real buzz in the air about Music in the Meadow, tickets are selling well and we can’t wait to welcome music lovers and families to this all-day event on 10 September”.

• Continue reading at Burnahm-On-Sea.com. See also This is the West Country: Steve Harley headlines new East Huntspill music festival.

A rare interview with Jordan, punk’s enigmatic frontwoman

Working with Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McClaren, performing with the Sex Pistols and acting for Derek Jarman – Jordan Mooney reflects on a life of iconoclasm

With her legacy being celebrated in new tome Fashion + Music (out now, by Laurence King Publishing), punk legend Jordan discusses some of her most significant moments with the book’s author, Katie Baron.

Still one of punk’s most-fetishised poster women, Jordan Mooney’s pivotal role at the nexus of Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren’s riotous (Sex and Seditionaries-era) world was vital to the looks of bands like the Sex Pistols and Adam and the Ants. She’s often immortalised in grainy black-and-white photography, as a severe vision of bleach-blonde-beehived, Cleopatra-eyed, latex-sheathed, fuck-you defiance, yet, there is far more to her influence than straightforward anarchic provocation. Rebellion was actually something of a by-product. Art (“I often described myself as a living work of art”), personal expression and a militant desire to champion the outlier were all at the real crux of her infectious perspective. As punk celebrates turning 40 this year, Jordan revisits her iconoclastic life.

At 14 you changed your name – why?

Jordan Mooney: I truly felt like I’d been labelled the wrong thing, like a kind of name dysmorphia.

You were suspended from school for your haircut, and famously given your own spot in a first-class carriage on the train to avoid your outfits provoking outrage in fellow commuters – do you think dressing the way you did was an act of bravery?

Jordan Mooney: People often refer to the name and the things that I wore as demonstrating bravery and shaking things up, but while I showed off to the best of my ability it wasn’t about bravery because I didn’t care what people thought. I’ve always been extremely comfortable in my own skin. It’s like being in an art movement – someone has to start it.

• Continue reading at Dazed.

Cleethorpes Rocks: 80s pop star Toyah Willcox performs – pictures

Eighties pop singer Toyah Willcox delighted crowds on the third and final night of Cleethorpes Rocks.

The songstress, best known for hits such as It’s A Mystery, Thunder In The Mountains and I Want To Be Free, performed to a receptive crowd at the popular festival.

Returning for a fifth year, the annual festival attracts people from far and wide who have descended on the resort to see the likes of pop band Scouting For Girls and indie act Reverend And The Makers.

Also on show for the crowds to enjoy was The Brew, Mustang, The Brookes and Chariots. And providing a spin on the usual festival act was the Frou Frou Club Burlesque and Cabaret Show, who performed on Friday evening.

• Continue reading at the Grimsby Telegraph. (Photo © Grimsby Telegraph)

Toyah is playing the Rewind South 2016 festival today and tomorrow she headlines the final day of the Cleethorpes Rocks Festival 2016.

From Clee Rocks to a night of illusion: Things to do this weekend

Cleethorpes Rocks Festival 2016
Meridian Showground, tonight and tomorrow

If you missed yesterday’s show, don’t miss what’s in store at Clee Rocks for the remainder of the weekend. Scouting For Girls will be tonight’s headliner while the brilliant Toyah will be finishing off the festival tomorrow evening. Ticket prices start at £25 per person. Call 01472 349222 to book. See www.cleethorpesrocks.co.uk

• Continue reading at the Grimsby Telegraph. Visit the Cleethorpes Rocks festival website here. Browse all of Dreamscape’s Cleethorpes Rocks 2016 news here.

This year’s three-day Cleethorpes Rocks festival gets underway tonight.

Over the weekend, the festival – taking place at the Meridian Show – will feature bands such as Wishbone Ash, Scouting For Girls, Toyah and From The Jam – plus a burlesque show. The event kicked off tonight with headline act Wishbone Ash, who will be joined by Mostly Autumn and Danny Bryant. And this year the Frou Frou Club Burlesque and Cabaret Show will also “Rock Cleethorpes”.

It also stars Kitty Bang Bang – a global burlesque sensation and the “wild child” of British Burlesque. Kitty was voted as number 21 in the world in the Top 50 Burlesque performers of 2015. Add to this home-grown Grimsby gal, Lady Wildflower, who is now taking the world of Burlesque by storm – from the UK, to Europe, to China.

Following the news that Toyah Willcox will take to the stage with her full live electric band, bands Criminal Mind and The Jackobins will showcase their talent too.

• Continue reading at the Grimsby Telegraph. Visit the Cleethorpes Rocks festival website here.

A total of 40,000 people will descend on Temple Island Meadows near Henley for the eighth annual Rewind South festival this weekend. The Eighties pop extravaganza will kick off tonight (Friday) with a welcome party headlined by West Country folk band The Wurzels.

Tomorrow’s performers include Rick Astley, whose latest album, 50, topped the charts this week, Tony Hadley of Spandau Ballet, Jimmy Somerville, the Trevor Horn Band, Toyah, Leo Sayer and Andy Bell of Erasure.

The festival concludes on Sunday with appearances by Adam Ant, Earth, Wind and Fire, M People’s Heather Small, The Beat, The Blockheads and Heaven 17’s Glenn Gregory, among others. There will be scores of attractions around the site including an inflatable church where revellers can get “married”, real ale and cocktail bars, food stalls, a roller disco, a funfair and a second stage featuring local performers.

The weather is expected to be warm and overcast with sunny spells and the chance of the odd shower tomorrow. Organiser David Heartfield said: “Everything is looking great for the weekend. We’re looking forward to it. It has been incredibly hot this week so I’d welcome slightly cooler weather.”

• Continue reading at the Henley Standard.

Toyah has a successful go at covering Martha & The Muffins classic. Released in 1987 this was off the album “Desire” and see’s her go for a more mainstream sound. Mike Hedges gives it enough weird synth sound and the vocal delivery is spot on. The track is remixed by English electro-dance duo, The Quick and it polishes up the original really well. B-side, “Plenty,” was written by Toyah even has a Motown feel to it with a horn section and a guitar solo, weird!

• Continue reading at My Vinyl Dreams.

Crime & Punishment: A Rock Musical – Interview with Director Phil Willmott

As part of London’s Free Open-Air Theatre Season, Crime & Punishment: A Rock Musical will hold its world premiere at The Scoop in London Bridge this month. Directed and adapted by Phil Willmott and featuring music by legendary rock legend Toyah Willcox, this revamped production will transform Dostoyevsky’s most famous and influential novel into a thrilling new musical. We sit down with director Phil Willmott to get the low-down on this adaptation of a classic with a tuneful twist.

London Calling: What attracted you to doing a rock-version of Crime & Punishment?

Phil Willmott: Well, we always try to do plays that reflect what’s going on in London society. Right now, we’re all very interested in what motivates these lone wolf killers to commit these terrible atrocities around the world. Crime & Punishment is very much about this, about a young man who sincerely believes that for the greater good and because of his beliefs that he is entitled to kill, so it feels very topical. And even though it’s a 19th Century Russian novel, the story is all about student angst, anger, and idealism so it seemed to really suggest itself to rock music as a sort of language for anger and alienation, as well as having a youthful energy.

LC: You’re using music by Toyah Willcox and Simon Darlow. What is it about their music that fits so well with this rock adaptation?

PW: Well in the 80s she was the punk princess. She was the person who took punk rock and sort of glamourised it and made it theatrical, while still retaining the kind of rawness, the anger and the energy of rock. So, because that’s my generation’s music, the first thing I did was to go back and listen to her songs and then I discovered that she is still recording and is still a best-selling recording artist so I got in touch with her and explained what I wanted to do and fortunately she said yes, that she’d love to come on board.

• Continue reading at London Calling.

The SAS Band hope to crown their headline appearance at the Wickham Festival this weekend with a special tribute to the music stars who have died in 2016.

Already this year fans have mourned the passing of David Bowie, Prince and Maurice White from Earth, Wind and Fire among others. Spike’s All Star Band is made up of varying big name artists who play their own and other musicians’ hits for a great party atmosphere and Madeline Bell, pictured, who will be appearing with them tomorrow night, is planning a fitting send-off.

One of the great joys of playing festivals for Bell – and for Fish who will also be part of the SAS line-up at Wickham – is the chance to meet up with old friends in a happy environment.

The pair will be joined at Wickham by Toyah Willcox and Queen drummer Roger Taylor for what is sure to be a magical night.

• Continue reading at the Southern Daily Echo. NB: Toyah was rehearsing with The SAS Band this week and tweeted that she will be performing a David Bowie song.

1980s music icon Toyah turns up at Guisborough cafe for pie, mash, peas and gravy

Toyah chose to eat at Guisborough’s Pie in the Sky cafe – little knowing that boss Sarah Cook was a huge fan

A 1980s music icon chose a Guisborough cafe for a pie and peas lunch – little knowing its boss is a huge fan of hers. Toyah and three band members ate at the Pie in the Sky cafe yesterday, ahead of a gig at The Longlands in Middlesbrough last night.

And for cafe boss Sarah Cook, it was a dream come true, as she is a massive Toyah fan. But it was nearly a case of mistaken for some of the cafe’s younger staff members.

• Continue reading at Gazette Live. (Photo © Gazette Live)

Toyah Willcox is special guest of Oxted’s Bluehouse Festival

Once known as the High Priestess of Punk, actor and singer Toyah Willcox will be in Oxted later in the year. Birmingham born Toyah will be at the Bluehouse Festival in the town’s URC Church on October 21 to talk about the music industry.

The Bluehouse Festival will run from October 16-30 and the organisers are putting together a mix of entertaining events and thought-provoking authors and speakers throughout the event.

The Box Office will be open between 10 am and noon at the United Reformed Church, Bluehouse Lane on Tuesday mornings – tickets are also available by post and online at: www.wegottickets.com/Bluehousefestival2016.

• Continue reading at Oxted Today.

From Toyah to Tony Hadley: four retro gigs an hour from Teesside

Fancy a blast from the past? From the best of the 80s to the days of punk here’s four star name gigs you can find within an hour’s drive of Teesside:

1. Former punk princess Toyah is heading for the Boro: The singer and actress brings her Proud, Loud and Electric tour to The Longlands Club, Middlesbrough on Sunday, July 31.

In a career spanning over 35 years, Toyah has amassed 13 top 40 singles, recorded 24 albums and toured live across the world. The gig, with her full live electric band, includes hit singles Good Morning Universe, Thunder in the Mountains and Its A Mystery alongside classics Neon Womb, Danced and Ieya.

• Continue reading at Gazette Live.

Tony Hadley will kick off an all-star Wickham Festival on Thursday.

The Spandau Ballet frontman tops the bill on the opening night, then the following night the Stranglers and Bruce Foxton’s From the Jam will be the main attractions at the event, which was voted best Festival (Under 15,000 capacity) at last year’s Live UK Music Business awards.

Headlining on Saturday will be the SAS Band with a line-up which will include Queen drummer Roger Taylor, former Marillion lead singer Fish, Madeline Bell and solo artist/actress Toyah Willcox before Lindisfarne close the four-day event on Sunday August 7.

• Continue reading at the Southern Daily Echo.

The Stranglers, Tony Hadley, Toyah and more at Wickham Festival

Music lovers are in for a treat with a cracking line-up of top acts covering all genres at the annual four-day Wickham Festival. The award-winning family friendly event taking place from Thursday, August 4, to Sunday, August 7, sees perennial punksters The Stranglers, velvet-voiced Spandau Ballet frontman Tony Hadley, and folk favourites Lindisfarne take to the main stage.

The legendary Roger Taylor of Queen is also performing at the festival site at Wickham, near Fareham, and there are other musical icons in Spike’s All Star Band –?Fish of hard rockers Marillion, and 1980s punk princess Toyah included.

• Continue reading at the Petersfield Post.

If you are a huge fan of 1980’s music then I would highly recommend the Rewind Scotland Festival. I, along with thousands of other Eighties music fans, headed along to Scone Palace in Perth at the weekend with my camping chair under my arm and wellies on.

This was my first time at the annual event and I have to say I was not disappointed. The rain stayed off on the Saturday but unfortunately we were not so lucky with the weather on the Sunday. It poured from the beginning until the end with only a short dry spell in the early evening. Although it didn’t seem to dampen spirits with revellers enjoying all the acts.

Sets by China Crisis, Toyah, ABC, Big Country and the British Electric Foundation were all real crowd-pleasers…

• Read the full review, by Debbie Clarke, at Fife Today.

Crime and Punishment: A Rock Musical – Dostoyevsky and the music of Toyah Willcox and Simon Darlow at The Scoop

London’s Free Open-Air Theatre Season is back as part of the London Bridge City Summer Festival, offering 40,000 free tickets for great theatre within the heart of London. Running since 2003, this is still London’s only ‘free to all’ annual festival of theatre. There’s no need to book so just turn up and take a seat.

This year, Gods and Monsters Theatre are shaking things up with a new rock musical of Crime and Punishment, with songs by the legendary Toyah Willcox. This newly revamped production of this 19th century masterpiece marks the increasingly important role Russia plays in London’s economy and the way our work, social and cultural life is enriched by a strong Eastern European presence in our capital.

Toyah was the Punk Princess of the 1980s with a song-writing career that has spanned thirty years and includes eight Top 40 singles and over 20 albums keeping her at the cutting edge of counter-culture.

• Continue reading at Frost Magazine.

Wickham Festival – This relaxed, family-friendly, festival returns with a Live UK Music Business award under its belt for ‘Best Festival (Under 15,000) 2015’. The historic village of Wickham will welcome Spandau Ballet frontman, Tony Hadley, The Stranglers, Lindisfarne and SAS Band (aka Spike’s All Stars) which features Fish, Toyah and Roger Taylor of Queen.

• When? Thursday 4 August – Sunday 7 August

• How much? Adults, £160, Under 16s, £80 for the whole weekend. Or £60 for the day, £30 for under 16s. Evening only tickets are priced at £40 for adults and £20 for under 16s. Under 10s go free. www.wickhamfestival.co.uk

• Continue reading at Hampshire-Life. Visit the Wickham Festival 2016 website by clicking below. Toyah is guest vocalist at the festival with The SAS Band on Saturday 6th August.