Dreamscape | The Toyah Willcox Fansite

The Chase: Celebrity Special: Be3
Saturday 14th April: 0.00am
(Series 6, Episode 2). Bradley Walsh presents as celebrity contestants Toyah Willcox, John Barnes, Germaine Greer and Audley Harrison pit their wits against ruthless quiz genius the Chaser in the hope of winning a potential charity prize pot worth thousands of pounds. They must work as a team and play strategically to answer general knowledge questions against the clock.

Who’s Doing The Dishes?: TV3: Sunday 22nd April: 7.30am
Who’s Doing The Dishes?: 3e: Wednesday 25th April: 11,50am
Toyah Willcox. (Series 1, Episode 8). Singer and actress Toyah Willcox hosts a dinner party for four guests who will win a cash prize if they can guess her identity from a selection of cryptic culinary clues. Will it remain a mystery who the celebrity host is? Brian McFadden presents the dining challenge.

Just two weeks until Toyah’s 1987 album Desire is released on limited edition translucent red vinyl as a Record Store Day exclusive, on Saturday 21st April.

The LP will be available exclusively in independent record stores only on Record Store Day but will be available beyond this day until stocks are all sold. This new edition is mastered from the original master tapes.

Exclusive to RSD2018, this numbered 30th anniversary edition of Toyah’s Desire pressed on heavyweight red Translucent vinyl was her first album for the EG label, and features her hit single cover version of Echo Beach as well as a cover of Donna Summer’s Love’s Unkind. Produced by Mike Hedges (Tears For Fears, The Cure) the album features Robert Fripp (who co-wrote the title track) and Ronnie Wood. The inner sleeve features the lyrics. This is limited to 1000 units worldwide.

• In the meantime revisit Dreamscape’s celebration of Desire by clicking below… (Thanks to toyahwillcox.com and recordstoreday.co.uk for the above info)

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)

Toyah is playing a selection of festivals this Summer, including Mello, Wychwood, Here and Now and Let’s Rock Shrewsbury, among others. More info at toyahwillcox.com.

On Friday 18 May 2018 – Toyah’s actual 60th Birthday – a new digital EP will be released on iTunes, Spotify, Amazon. Four From Toyah | Birthday Edition includes four new and previously unreleased songs written by Toyah and Simon Darlow, their first release since 2011. The EP begins with the rousing lead track Telepathic Lover which you can hear an exclusive preview of here.

Two tracks heard in the Crime & Punishment production at London’s Scoop Theatre also feature, Who Let The Beast Out and Fire Escape. The EP is rounded off with the stirring, beautiful Our Hearts Still Beat, written specially for the end titles of the film In Extremis. There are currently no plans to make a CD/vinyl of this particular release available.

• Subscribe: For full info on the above, and more Toyah news, sign up to Breaking Through. The EP was also given a special Instagram announcement today.

Just announced officially online – Four Gigs From #Toyah60 on sale now!

And with an extra special posting at Instagram too – Celebrating 40 years of music in her 60th year.

Toyah will perform 4 special gigs this autumn with her full band, in Manchester, Bristol, Wolverhampton and London.

Expect classics, hits & surprises. Tickets on sale now and available from TicketWeb and Stargreen.

26 Oct | Manchester Ruby Lounge
1 Nov | Bristol Fleece
2 Nov | Wolverhampton Slade Rooms
4 Nov | Islington o2 Academy

The year 2018 includes several momentous milestones for Toyah. This includes her 60th birthday and the 40th anniversary of her music career as Toyah recorded her first studio demos in 1978. These special concerts –with her full electric band– will be a celebratory retrospective including hit singles, album classics and fan favourites.

Toyah’s 1987 album Desire will be issued as a new limited edition translucent red vinyl LP on 21 April for Record Store Day 2018.

• Browse all of Toyah’s upcoming confirmed dates at her official Gig Diary at toyahwillcox.com.

Over the past 40 years Toyah has provided the world with numerous “Iconic Images” (good name for a fanzine, that!) but has there ever been imagery as mesmerising as that which Toyah adopted for Thunder In The Mountains in 1981? The book ‘Pop Styles’ seemed to think so even back in 1984…

Pop Styles, by Ted Polhemus & Lynn Procter (1984) An A-Z Guide To The World Where Fashion Meets Rock’N’Roll

Crazy Colour: Perhaps the most important pendulum swing in the history of pop styles is that between nature and artifice. One of the best ways to join the against-nature school of thought is to dye your hair a bright colour or better still a whole collection of colours which nature never intended to appear on the head of a human being. Historical examples are few, however, as the technology has only been widely available a short time. Only impermanent vegetable dyes were available before the seventies and it was punks who first combined an anti-natural attitude with the new chemicals. Special credit therefore goes to Wee Willie Harris who caused a furore in the fifties when he dyed his hair so pink it dripped down his collar in the rain, Roy Wood who fronted Wizzard behind a mass of multicoloured locks and of course David Bowie. Ultimately, however, the first prize must go to post-punk Toyah Willcox who with dyes and hair spray has resculpted her head into a homage to artifice which even the most daring of science fiction films have failed to equal.

• Toyah’s Offical website/social media spaces will be counting down to Toyah’s Birthday with Forty From Toyah – 40 classic images spanning Toyah’s amazing career.

Toyah guested on BBC Radio Four’s In The Psychiatrist’s Chair in September 1992. A fascinating interview with Dr Anthony Clare. Certainly one of the most honest and interesting of the many Toyah has given over the last 40 years. This originally aired on 9th September 1992 and runs for approximately 40 minutes. Click below to listen or download.

Check out the Dreamscape Press Archive. Classic Toyah interviews, reviews, features, articles and clippings – A huge virtual library with press from 1979 through to 2014.

The trailer for How to Talk to Girls at Parties – Elle Fanning rocks out and Nicole Kidman channels Toyah Willcox in the first trailer for John Cameron Mitchell’s movie. (Source: The Skinny)

How to Talk to Girls at Parties also reunites Mitchell with Rabbit Hole star Kidman, who looks from the trailer to give a wild performance as a punk guru who’s part Toyah Willcox, part Vivienne Westwood. How to Talk to Girls at Parties is released 11 May by StudioCanal.

Toyah plays the Wychwood Festival, being held at Cheltenham Racecourse over three days, at the beginning of June.

She will be appearing on the Main Stage on day two of the festival, on Saturday 2nd June, for a live PA.

Wychwood Festival returns to Cheltenham racecourse for its 14th annual year from the 1st to the 3rd of June, 2018.

The UK’s favourite family festival takes place within the beautiful Gloucestershire countryside, with over 100 acts performing across four stages, plus music, dance and arts workshops, a circus school and a programme of talks, debates and comedy for all ages.

With optional idyllic camping and something to satisfy all appetites, there’s no wonder Wychwood has been nominated as ‘Best Family Festival’ each year at the UK Festival awards.

From punk princess to cult stage actress to high priestess of TV, Toyah Willcox is a uniquely gifted performer and an inextinguishable flame. Charismatic, outspoken and impossible to categorise, she is one of Britain’s iconic household names – an award-winning rock legend as well as a much-loved stage/screen actress and music composer.

In a career spanning over 40 years Toyah has amassed thirteen top 40 singles, recorded twenty-four albums, written two books, appeared in over forty stage plays, acted in twenty feature films and presented hundreds of television programmes.

2018 sees a major year of celebration for Toyah as she celebrates her 60th birthday and 40th anniversary of her music career. Her 1987 album Desire (featuring guest playing from Robert Fripp and Ronnie Wood) will be issued as a new limited edition translucent red vinyl LP on 21 April for Record Store Day 2018.

• Continue reading at the Wychwood Festival website. Further info at Toyah’s Gig Diary at toyahwillcox.com.

Midlands Spotlight – Derby Film Festival 2018

The Derby Film Festival is back for its fifth edition taking place from 4th – 13th May 2018 and local audiences can expect another successful array of previews, classic films from the archive and a weekend dedicated to genres beyond the mainstream.

DFF are scouring the globe to find the best in world cinema as well as bringing some special guests to talk about their experiences in the film industry. As ever they’ll be home to the Five Lamps 24 hour film challenge 24/5, the contest to make a 3 minute film in 24 hours.

Over the opening weekend of Derby Film Festival, they also launch Paracinema Weekend, a long weekend dedicated to films and genres outside the mainstream. Events at Paracinema include an on-stage conversation with actress Toyah Willcox and a screening of Nosferatu in the grand surroundings of Derby Cathedral.

• Continue reading at Midlands Movies. Further info on Derby Film Festival and the Paracinema Festival 2018 here.

I’ve voted for my Top 10 singles today in The Official Toyah Website’s Toyah60 Poll. The ultimate Toyah Chart will be revealed as part of Toyah’s 60th Birthday celebrations next month. Seriously difficult to choose 10 from so many great songs but my Top 10 is: 1. Bird In Flight, 2.Ghost Light, 3. Jungles Of Jupiter, 4. Run Wild, Run Free, 5. Elusive Stranger, 6. Brave New World, 7. Symbiotic, 8. Time Is Ours. 9. Moonlight Dancing, 10. Love Me – Vote for yours by clicking below.

• Bubbling Under: Waiting, For You, Snow Covers The Kiss, Computer, Falling To Earth, Tears For Elie, Dreamscape, Pop Star, Danced, Visions, Dawn Chorus, Freedom, When A Woman Cries, Don’t Fall in Love (I Said), Angel In You, Race Through Space… etc… etc.

VOTE for your Top 10 Toyah Songs in the Toyah60 Poll. The Official Toyah Website are creating the ultimate Toyah Chart to be revealed as part of Toyah’s 60th Birthday celebrations. Voting closes 23:59, Sunday 6th May 2018. Click below to visit the official website to cast your vote.

Happy Easter Sunday! Here’s a mini-gallery of great photos from Toyah’s gig in Northampton last night. Please click below to view larger versions. (Photos © Ian Davis)

Set-List: Good Morning Universe, We Are, Be Proud Be Loud (Be Heard), Neon Womb, Thunder In The Mountains, Race Through Space, Our Movie, Echo Beach, Obsolete, Jungles Of Jupiter, Rebel Run, The Packt, Brave New World, Rebel Yell, It’s A Mystery, Danced, Sensational, I Want To Be Free, Encore: Demolition Men, Ieya.

Toyah plays a full-band gig in Northampton tonight, at The Roadmender – with “tons of Toyah classics” on the set-list. There are still a few tickets left, click below to buy…

Following its limited cinema release you can soon watch Lies We Tell, in which Toyah has a small role, from the comfort of your own home. The film is available to buy on DVD and Blu-ray, as well as on Digital HD from 2nd April.

Here’s where:

iTunes
Amazon
Google Play
Microsoft
Sky Store
TalkTalk TV
BT
Vubiquity (EirCom)
Rakuten TV
Sony

• Browse all of Dreamscape’s previous Lies We Tell news here.

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.

Toyah tweeted today: “Fabulous time making BBC Radio4 doc on hairdressing. Catching up with Keith at Smile“. (Photo © Toyah Willcox)

John Shuttleworth’s Lounge Music:
BBC Radio 4 Extra: Sunday 8th April: 11pm
Toyah Willcox. John Shuttleworth invites musical guests to his Sheffield home to sing one of his songs and one of their own, if they are lucky. Mary is not happy, as John has invited Toyah Willcox to the lounge and she is worried that Toyah will live up to her wild 80s image and wreak havoc in the house. (Episode 3, from July 2014)

Jubilee was on release in cinemas this week & month forty years ago in 1978 after premiering in London on 28 February. (Image © Official Toyah)