Dreamscape | The Toyah Willcox Fansite

Details on next Tuesday’s episode of, BBC1 daytime drama, Doctors, “Afternoon of the Living Dead”, in which Toyah plays Bill. (Photo © BBC)

The team have a scary day out
1:45pm, Tuesday, 10 November 2015

The team arrive at an abandoned hospital for their team building day. Suddenly Bill appears and splits into two teams to survive a Zombie invasion. Jimmi tells Sid that the whole thing is ridiculous – but Daniel is fired up and starts to take on a lead role in the action.

Both teams are told that one of them has to make a sacrifice, so Mrs Tembe throws herself to the mercy of a zombie, while Heston reluctantly does the same.

Bill compliments Jimmi on surviving and he unenthusiastically admits they worked as a team. Daniel points out you can’t be a good leader without a good team, an idea that gets him thinking…

• Continue reading at What’s on TV. Read more about this forthcoming episode of Doctors here. Cast list and further info is available at the BBC Doctors website.

Toyah was interviewed earlier this month, in Metro‘s “60 Seconds With”, discussing Aaaaaaaah! and more.

The actress and singer, 57, is starring in a dark British comedy where all the characters act like wild apes.

Your new film, Aaaaaaaah!, is brilliantly bonkers. Why did you say yes to a movie about humans behaving like apes?
It was a clever. well structured, brilliant script with absolutely no respect for anything. It was fabulously complex and incredibly rewarding to do. But I never thought, ‘What the hell have I got myself into?’ because it was a team of really great comedians (including Julian Rhind-Tutt and Julian Barrett) and so they had licence to do something as mad as this.

How do you describe it to your friends?
The first thing I say is, ‘Don’t go and see it!’ I’m 57, so my friends aren’t that much older than me. I said, ‘If you can’t handle vomit, poo, semen, gratuitous sex and gratuitous violence, this isn’t for you,’ and they say, ‘Oh God we’ve got to see this film!’

What was the maddest scene?
It was a kitchen scene. I cook for my husband (musician Robert Fripp) three times a day and so to do the cooking scene was very natural. But to do it where there are no social norms and no hygiene is a very different thing. To do a cookery scene while watching telly with one of the most brilliant interpretations of food porn I’ve ever seen and then to take a crap in the corner – I just thought it was utter genius… Read more…

Pop and 80s icon Toyah Willcox was at Bridgwater College last night (Sunday, October 25, 2015) to perform at The McMillan Theatre.

The gig proved a unique opportunity for people to experience Toyah up close and personal.

The evening included Toyah performing an acoustic set of her hit singles and classic songs, alongside recalling stories from her colourful 35-year career.

Even Bridgwater Press photographer Jeff Searle could not resist from going along and grabbing a picture with Toyah.

• Continue reading at Bridgwater Press.

Autograph hunters head to Blackpool for a star studded convention

Bond girls, a former Miss World who famously dated George Best, and the ‘Stupid Boy’ from Dad’ Army are just some of the celebrities taking part in the inaugural Charity Autograph Convention in Blackpool.

Other celebs attending including former Miss World (1977) Mary Stavin, pop star Toyah Willcox, Game of Thrones actors Ian Whyte and the ‘Stupid Boy’ from Dad’s Army, Ian Lavender.

• Continue reading at ITV News.

Steve Oram on AAAAAAAAH!, monkey business and Battenberg

We talk to Steve Oram about his mad monkey movie Aaaaaaaah!

You’ve not seen anything quite like Steve Oram’s dark comedy Aaaaaaaah! Set in a dystopian world where everyone behaves like apes (complete with grunting, there’s no dialogue), it’s a viciously funny and totally odd piece of work that’s been building excellent word of mouth since its debut at FrightFest.

The film has been going round a few festivals, how have you found the reaction so far?
We’ve had various screenings all around the country, we had a little tour with Picturehouse Cinemas, so we’ve been going round with them and it’s been brilliant. We’ve been doing Q & As at most of these places and I’ve been blown away by the response, it seems people like no-dialogue films these days! FrightFest was a really good start for us, it was amazing. It really seems to be growing, which is great. We had a really good screening at Mayhem in Nottingham on Sunday, which went really well. Really great crowd there, very pleased.

Did you have actors in mind?
I did, I wrote most of the parts for the actors that ended up playing them. They’re gathered from the comedy world and most of them are good friends of mine, Tom Meeten who plays my beta male in it and Julian [Barratt] and Noel [Fielding] and Julian Rhind-Tutt, Holly Dempsey, they’re all really good friends, but Toyah [Willcox] was the one I didn’t know. I just sent her a script because I was a huge fan of her in Jubilee and Quadrophenia, her early work I think is just incredible. And she loved it and fit right in with all my mental friends! Which was really great, a really happy coincidence.

• Continue reading at SciFiNow.

Actor & Comedian Steve Oram In Leeds to Hold Special Late Night Screening of His Debut Film, Aaaaaaaah!

Comedian, actor & writer Steve Oram is bringing his new debut feature film to the Hyde Park Picture House this Saturday, where it will show at a special late night screening, alongside a Q&A with the director. The film, entitled AAAAAAAAH! , is a hilarious, anarchic and touching look at the human condition, and stars many of Oram’s comedy contemporaries including Julian Barratt, Noel Fielding, Alice Lowe and Julian Rhind-Tutt.

Aaaaaaaah! plus live Q&A with director Steve Oram is at the Hyde Park Picture House on Saturday 24th October at 11pm.

• Continue reading at North Leeds Life.

The 28th Bewdley Festival has been described as a great success by its organisers.

Bewdley Festival brought its traditional mix of local talent, regional celebrities and national and international stars of stage, screen and concert halls, all packed into an eventful ten days and all delivered entirely by volunteers. The event, which ran from Friday, October 9, to Sunday, October 18, is much anticipated by lovers of music, comedy, drama and the arts in Wyre Forest.

Other performances across the 10-day festival included Toyah Willcox, Lesley Smith, Andrew Downes, Dr Phil Hammond and Max Keen.

• Continue reading at The Kidderminster Shuttle. Browse our Bewdley Festival 2015 news.

• The Guardian/Guide: Charlie Lyne’s Home Entertainment – Aaaaaaaah!: Frightfest Presents, VOD: Even as physical media starts to look like a relic from a less enlightened age, the internal hierarchy of home video lives on, decreeing that real films come out on Blu-ray – Continue reading… (Thanks to Lärwi for the scan)

• The List: 10 Best New Horror DVDs for Hallowe’en: 5. Aaaaaaaah! (Icon) Aaaaaaaah! is the pick of the new FrightFest Presents imprint (other titles include Some Kind of Hate, Estranged and Night of the Living Deb). The directorial debut of actor Steve Oram (Sightseers) verges on the experimental with a society that hasn’t developed language but communicates via grunts, hoots and gestures. Imagine chimpanzees in a domestic urban setting (anyone who has read Will Self’s masterpiece Great Apes will recognise the concept) as they fight, squabble and rut. Deeply weird but strangely brilliant – Continue reading…

• Westword: Denver Film Festival Announces First Wave of Programming and Early-Bird Discounts: LATE NIGHT – Aaaaaaaah! / UK (Steve Oram): Humans live like wild apes in the midst of a present-day London neighborhood — grunting, fornicating and fighting to kill — in this exuberantly low-budget mash-up of horror, comedy, cult sci-fi, and commentary on social devolution from co-star, screenwriter and first-time director Steve Oram – Continue reading…

• EW: Denver Film Festival to screen Gaspar Noé’s Love, action movie Camino, and Aaaaaaaah!: The Gaspar Noé-directed 3D erotic drama Love, the Zoë Bell-starring action-thriller movie Camino, and the horror-comedy Aaaaaaaah! — about humans living like wild apes in present-day London — will all screen at this year’s Denver Film Festival – Continue reading…

• Brutal as Hell: New Sizzle Reel For FrightFest Presents VOD Platform: At the stroke of midnight on 19th October, FrightFestPresents.com will release its first six titles for VOD. In conjunction with Icon Home Entertainment, the biggest name on the British horror fest scene are now bringing some titles from their 2015 flagship event into the digital realm for all to see – and the first movies to be released under this banner are The Sand, Estranged, After Death, Aaaaaaaaah!, Night of the Living Deb and Some Kind of Hate – Continue reading…

Singer, actress, TV personality, author – Toyah Willcox has gained fame from all of the above in a career spanning over 30 years. And, as she prepares to come to East Lancashire for a special show celebrating her music she reveals she’s probably having the best time of her whole career.

“I’m fortunate to have had such longevity,” she said. “But I really do think this is the best time for me.”

In her new show which comes to Oswaldtwistle Civic Arts Centre next Friday, Toyah will be performing many of her hits acoustically. For those familiar with her many chart successes including Thunder in the Mountains, Brave New World and Ieya, the idea of an acoustic show may, at first, be surprising.

But Toyah can put them at their ease. “It all works fabulously well,” said the star who had eight top 40 singles and has released over 20 albums. “I thought I’d give it a go so there’s me and two guitarists who can also both sing and that’s it. When you take away the drums and a lot of the volume the songs really prove themselves. You can hear the harmonies and people have been coming up after the show saying that they like many of the songs even more the acoustic way than the original.”

• Continue reading at the Lancashire Telegraph.

College News: 80s cult pop star Toyah is coming to Bridgwater

Pop and 80s icon, Toyah Willcox will be performing a lively unplugged storytellers style gig at Bridgwater College’s The McMillan Theatre later this month.

This gig on Sunday, October 25, 2015, at 7.30pm will be a unique chance to experience Toyah up close and personal.COLLEGE NEWS: 80s cult pop star Toyah is coming to Bridgwater

The evening will include Toyah performing an acoustic set of her loved hit singles and classic songs, alongside recalling stories from her colourful 35-year career. Tickets cost just £18 and are available from www.mcmillantheatre.com or the Box Office in person or by phone, 01278-556677.

• Continue reading at Bridgwater Press.

In his directorial debut, Sightseers star Steve Oram delivers a remarkable film that satirises human behaviour with apeshit craziness.

Set in a superficially recognisable South London of semi-detached houses, football pitches and fashionable clothing boutiques, Aaaaaaaah! nevertheless offers an alternate reality that entirely eschews dialogue for primal grunts and gesticulations, with civilisation repeatedly shown to be a thin veneer over simian wildness.

Aaaaaaaah! features some dark and comically extreme sequences, but it’s not too aloof in its arthouse outlook. Plotwise, it’s essentially Romeo and Juliet.

• Continue reading at Chortle. Catch up on all of our Aaaaaaaah! news here.

The world of VOD is sometimes seen as the bargain bin of film but new services like Frightfest Presents and its new ape drama might be about to change all that

British comedy stalwart Steve Oram’s directorial debut Aaaaaaaah! sees a host of famous faces (Toyah Willcox included) occupy a world in which human beings act like apes, their social graces eradicated and all known language replaced by a series of unintelligible grunts. So far, so kooky, but from the opening moments of the film – in which Oram’s character weepily urinates over a photo of his ex-wife – Aaaaaaaah! reveals itself as something much more tender than its offbeat premise might imply.

• Continue reading at The Guardian.

A popular Shipley Gate venue is hosting the auditions for a new rock music-based show. Thunder Valley Rocks is a nine-episode television show, filmed in a “live” format, and presented by Toyah Willcox.

Each episode features five live, unsigned rock bands, with celebrity guests appraising the bands’ performances and offering tips and advice from their own experiences.

The premise behind the show is that rock bands receive minimal exposure on national television compared to solo artists and pop music. In the final episode, the guests will choose a band between them, who will be offered a chance to play at a top UK music festival in 2016.

The pilot show will be screened on November 14. The celebrity guests will be taken from a range of different eras, and include musicians such as Roy Wood, Suzi Quatro, Kofi Baker, Rex Brown, Rick Wakeman, Ginger Fish, Martin Turner, Mark Brzezicki and more.

• Continue reading at Belper News.

80s star Toyah Willcox to perform at Bridgwater’s The McMillan Theatre

Pop and 80s icon, Toyah Willcox is set to perform a lively unplugged storytellers style gig at Bridgwater College’s The McMillan Theatre. The event is taking place on Sunday October 25 at 7.30pm.

It is a chance to experience Toyah up close and personal and will include the star performing an acoustic set of her loved hit singles and classic songs, as well as telling stories from her thirty-five year career.

Anthony Bruton, Theatre Manager, said: “We are looking forward to hosting Toyah and know it will be a great evening for both fans and those who love acoustic music.”

Tickets cost £18 are available from www.mcmillantheatre.com or the Box Office in person or by phone, 01278 556677.

• Continue reading at This is The West Country.

Bad hair, neon clothes and most importantly classic tracks that went down in music history – it’s Southampton’s own celebration of the 80s.

Now organisers of Let’s Rock Southampton have announced the line-up for their third date on the Common next summer, the Daily Echo can today reveal.

Revellers will be dancing to the sounds of former Frankie Goes To Hollywood lead vocalist Holly Johnson, heartthrobs from the era Rick Astley and Jason Donovan, Grammy Award winners Soul II Soul, Fine Young Cannibals frontman Roland Gift and former teen icon Tiffany.

Also on the bill are Scottish rockers Big Country, 2 Tone ska revival band The Selecter, Eurovision favourites Sonia and Cheryl, Mike and Jay from Bucks Fizz, plus chart-topping Toyah and rockers Dr & The Medics.

• Continue reading at the Southern Daily Echo.

Toyah Willcox on why she wasn’t terrified of the sex scenes in new film Aaaaaaaah!

Former teenage rebel stars in new film where the actors resort to grunting rather than words

Hell hath no fury like a woman with a frying pan in her hand when men are being stupid. But if you asked Toyah Willcox’s latest film character Barbara what she’s doing with it, you might not be able to understand her answer.

In the directorial debut of Sightseers’ actor and comedy star Steve Oram, the cast began with a script in English and then threw it away after breaking the words down into grunts. The result is Aaaaaaaah! – the year’s most original comedy horror, about a dysfunctional community who seem to be taking the human race backwards in south London. Although the actors look like humans and the film is a study of the human condition, the characters on screen behave and grunt like apes.

With Toyah playing a community leader called Barbara, the story is about men’s relationships with each other and the opposite sex while trying to reach for alpha-male status. While it’s a rare 18-certificate movie with no bad language, the 79-minute film is peppered with explicit and sometimes violent sexual scenes which include dismemberment.

• Continue reading at the Birmingham Mail.

• On Demand: Aaaaaaaah! will be released as a digital download and on demand via Icon and Frightfest Presents from 19 October. Further info at horrorchannel.com and toyahwillcox.com.

• Aaaaaaaah! at The Electric: Shock & Gore presents Aaaaaaaah! + Steve Oram & Toyah Willcox Q&A Thursday 1st October, 8pm: Screen 2. Tickets are almost sold out – Continue reading…

• Aaaaaaaah! Posters: Extremely limited, beautiful 5 layer screen print by Brighton’s finest The Private Press of Jay Shaw’s artwork for Steve Oram’s debut feature AAAAAAAAH! 100 copies only… when they are gone – they are gone! – Continue reading…

• Taste Of Cinema: Aaaaaaaah! – VIFF 2015 Review: Aaaaaaaah! is adventurous and bombastic postmodern cinema, full stop. Puritans, the easily offended, the mild-mannered and the populist filmgoer need not apply. And this, trust me, is a very good thing… Utilizing a fully committed and courageous cast of unlikely and unlikeable characters, including alpha male Smith (Oram), his object of affection, Denise (Lucy Honigman), the culinarily-challenged Barbara (Toyah Willcox), the emasculated Jupiter (Julian Barrett), and inept shop clerk, Carl (Noel Fielding). The cast alone ensures Aaaaaaaah!’s cult status while its Beckett-like scenario and savage ravel all but cinches it – Continue reading…

• Shooting People: Aaaaaaaah!: One of the cinematic highlights of my year has been watching Steve Oram’s sensational new film “AAAAAAAAH!”… “AAAAAAAAH!” which is perhaps the best sequel I could ever imagine to the original “Planet of the Apes” is funny, obscene, ludicrous, poignant and braver, bolder and better than anything else you will see this year- Continue reading…

• Aaaaaaaah! @ Dreamscape: Browse all of our related news…

Discover true terror on October 19th as Icon Film Distribution and FrightFest, the UK’s leading genre film festival, team up to launch FrightFest Presents, an all-new expert driven social community-building label ready to deliver true shocks and scares straight into your home just in time for Halloween and beyond…FrightFest Presents will bring you the most unsettling feature films from the festival; a series of movies that wowed and earned critical accliam hand-picked by FrightFest directors Alan Jones and Paul McEvoy.

The first phase of six films hand curated by FrightFest Presents will be available to download from October 19 and are: The Sand, Estranged, After Death, Aaaaaaaaah!, Night of the Living Deb and Some Kind of Hate.

• Continue reading at the Horror Channel.

Household name, pop icon, TV presenter and actress Toyah is performing at the Engine Shop at Enginuity in Coalbrookdale on Friday evening, 2 October.

Tickets to ‘Acoustic, Up Close & Personal with Toyah’, which are priced at £20 per person, are available in advance only. They can be purchased online or from the Ironbridge Visitor Information Centre and any of the Ironbridge Gorge Museum shops. Tickets include admission into Enginuity from 5pm, the auditorium opens at 7pm and the performance starts at 8pm. There will be an interval and light refreshments and bar drinks will be available; Ironbridge Gorge Museum Passports are not valid for this event.

For further information call the Ironbridge Tourist Information Centre on 01952 433 424 or visit www.ironbridge.org.uk, where tickets can be also be purchased.

• Continue reading at Shropshire Live.

Aaaaaaaah! was featured in The Sunday Times’ Culture magazine on 20th September – Monkey business – The actors go ape in a new movie that has grunts instead of gags. It’s already a cult hit. Click below to read the article. (Thanks to Lärwi for the scan)

Toyah’s on tour and still loving the music as she heads to Scotland

Toyah Willcox may have enjoyed most of her chart success in the 1980s but anybody who thinks she has slowed since then has not been paying attention.

This year, for instance, she has been involved in four feature films and has added regular TV work to her multi-faceted repertoire, which has encompassed everything from Quadrophenia and Casualty to Doctor Who and I’m A Celebrity.

Yet, much as she enjoys appearing on the screen, Toyah remains in love with rock music.

Next week, she and her band will bring such hits as It’s a Mystery and I Want to Be Free to Stonehaven Town Hall for a brace of concerts on September 18 and 19.

Then she’ll be at the Gardyne Theatre in Dundee on September 20.

• Continue reading at STV Aberdeen. (Thanks to Lärwi and William)