Dreamscape – Toyah Willcox Fansite

Salvaged from eBay for your viewing/reading pleasure. An article from 1983 by ‘Disco 45’. Hardly mind blowing journalism but I thought I’d add it as it’s admirably positive.

Contrary to what a lot of people expected, Toyah Willcox has returned strongly to the charts after an absence from recording of nearly a whole year.

Yes, it’s been that long since ‘Be Proud Be Loud (Be Heard)’ was released and became Toyah’s seventh hit single, while around the same time her most recent album, ‘Warrior Rock (Toyah On Tour)’, also came out, and not unexpectedly hit the Top 20 on the day of release. That was her fifth consecutive hit LP, and at the end of last year things were looking very good for the Birmingham girl with the big voice and the huge fan following. At the start of this year she was voted Top Female Singer in both a national newspaper and one of our own music rags, and we all expected a new record to be released to capitalize on that acclaim. But busy Toyah had other ideas, because as every Toyah fan knows, she is highly talented at more than just singing in front of a rock band.

When she was eighteen (that’s seven years ago) she appeared with Noel Edmonds in a TV play called ‘Glitter’ and the following year she was one of the stars of the rather bizarre punk film ‘Jubilee’ along with another name which would become very famous a year or two later, Adam Ant… and in case you are wondering, Antpeople, Adam’s about to come up with a new single, so watch out! Back to Toyah. She appeared in a film titled ‘The Corn Is Green’ with that great actress, Katharine Hepburn, had a part in ‘Quadrophenia’, the film about mods, and her more recent acting credits gave been better and better all the time. So perhaps it wasn’t too surprising that she was very much interested in an acting part she was offered in a play called ‘Trafford Tanzi’, which is about a lady wrestler – it was the title part which Toyah was to play, and to do it properly, she had to learn how to wrestle for real!

She was a huge success in the play, so good that the run was extended to over six months … with Ms Willcox being thrown about a wrestling ring on stage (all the play’s action took place in the ring) and having to remember her lines. Just how well she must have done can be judged by the fact that the same play, but with the title ‘Teaneck Tanzi’ was staged in New York with Debbie Harry in the title part, and was such a terrible failure that it ran for just one night on Broadway before it was taken off. So Toyah has done something of which she can be very proud, and despite leaving her fans without a record for almost a year she has probably gained a lot more fans because of the play. Anyway, she’s back and we’re very happy to see her back, and we’ll be even happier when we hear her new album, ‘Love Is The Law’, which should be in your friendly local record store within the month, and will include, we hear, the excellent ‘Rebel Run’.