Dreamscape | The Toyah Willcox Fansite

Toyah Willcox brings her autumn 2012 tour The Changeling Resurrection to Bridport’s Electric Palace on Friday, October 26.

The gig celebrates the 30th anniversary of Toyah’s chart-topping albums, The Changeling, and Warrior Rock and comes hot on the heels of her acclaimed spring tour, which generated five-star reviews and sold-out shows.

With new images created especially for the tour and material not performed in 30 years, it is a true celebration and re-interpretation of one of Toyah’s finest albums, alongside many of her most well-known hit singles.

• Continue reading at the Dorset Echo.

Low quality mini-gallery of the full (of what’s available) photo session from 1980. These were published in ‘Fab 208’ magazine that year and have only been available in cropped versions until very recently. Click below to browse all our Classic Toyah posts. (Thanks to Andi)

A great photo of Toyah is included at The Tatler website in a gallery of images from last week’s Nicholas Coleridge book launch. Another of Toyah is also featured at The Media Eye as the lead photo in their coverage of the event, in the Around Town section.

A comprehensive new interview with Toyah, from Penny Black Music.

With her fiery hair and soaring, near operatic vocals, Toyah Willcox was one of the most striking and iconic singers of the early 1980s.

Willcox, who was brought up in Birmingham, first came to prominence as an actress, appearing in Derek Jarman’s 1978’s punk epic ‘Jubilee ’and the Who-inspired ‘Quadrophenia’(1979), and also acting alongside Katherine Hepburn in the made-for-TV film ‘The Corn is Green’.

By 1980 her musical career, which she had run concurrently with her acting career, had also begun to take off. With her band which was also called Toyah, she released five studio albums, ‘Sheep Farming in Barnet’ (1979), ‘The Blue Meaning’(1980), ‘Anthem’(1981), ‘The Changeling’(1982) and ‘Love is the Law’(1983). She also had seven Top 40 single hits, including in 1981, her most successful year, three Top 10 hits alone with ‘Four from Toyah’, ‘I Want to Be Free’ and ‘Thunder in the Mountains’.

Since Toyah folded in 1983, Toyah Willcox, who has been married to ex- King Crimson guitarist Robert Fripp since 1986, has gone on to release another ten studio albums under her own name.

• Continue reading at Penny Black Music.

• Like Punk Never Happened: Smash Hits Archive: October 14-27 1982: Lots of Toyah content in the latest issue uploaded exactly 30 years to the day it was originally published: Toyah back cover pin-up, Songwords: Be Proud Be Loud (Be Heard), Singles Review: Be Proud Be Loud (Be Heard), Be Proud/Warrior Rock: Full-page advert.

• Brave New World: A brilliant fan made tribute to Toyah’s 1982 video. Filmed in ’82 and completed this year.

• 366 Weird Movies: Capsule: The Tempest (1979): Pop singer Willcox makes for an endearingly sexy Miranda.

• Toyah supports the 2012 Breast Cancer Campaign/Wear it Pink. Visit their website here.

• I Was A Teenage Toyah Fan: One Year On: “A year rolls around – this time in 2011 I was editing and finalising the layout in between going to Toyah gigs whilst posting teaser extracts on this page…”

• The Isle Of Everywhere: Toyah – Thunder In The Mountains: Associated with punk, I never really gave Toyah a chance, even when I heard that she was married to Robert Fripp (one of my guitar idols), but it turns out, she’s more like a dyed-hair loud Kate Bush sort. Good songs, bright hair, and quite an alright voice.

• Toyah’s Vintage Christmas: Clips from last year’s mammoth festive special have recently been uploaded to You Tube by Vintage TV. (Thanks to Paul Lomas)

• The Independent: Stars flock to St Paul’s for Sassoon memorial: Sassoon’s widow, Ronnie Holbrook, was joined by a celebrities from the fashion, film, art and design industries, among them Sir Michael Caine, Zandra Rhodes, John Frieda, Nicky Clarke, singer Toyah Willcox and designer Mary Quant.

“Next year we are going to tour ‘Love is the Law’, the album which came after ‘The Changeling’, but we are not going to do two tours of that, just one extended tour“…

(Info Source: Toyah Interview @ Penny Black Music)

The legendary early 1980’s magazine, Flexipop!, is now at Facebook.

Photos from, the 30-minute drama Toyah filmed in 1984 for ITV with Annie Ross, Movie Queen. The first is from a scene that was filmed but not used. Click below to zoom (Thanks to Andi)

More great photos of Toyah on The Changeling Resurrection II UK Tour. These are from the Classic Grand in Glasgow last Friday night. View larger versions of these, and more, at Dreamscape’s TCRII Gallery. (Thanks to Sharon Dickson, pictured with Toyah)

Toyah, and little Toyah, onstage at Manchester Academy last Saturday night. View larger versions of these and more at Dreamscape’s TCRII Gallery. (Thanks to Glyn Whelan)

Toyah mentioned in a recent interview with The Telegraph: “Next year, I’m touring in a show called Hormonal Housewives. It’s a comedy drama.”

Join the Hormonal Housewives as they battle against weight gain, weight loss, mood swings, wine, PMS, men, going to the gym, waxing, stretch marks, chocolate, upper-lip hair, chocolate, men, chocolate… and all the other joys of being a 21st Century girl! Did we mention chocolate?

Dates and cast list for the 2013 tour are expected to be announced shortly.

A new trailer for Toyah’s Christmas 2012 panto, Sleeping Beauty at the Marlowe Theatre in Canterbury, has recently been uploaded to You Tube… Oh yes it has! (Thanks to Paul Lomas)

Toyah, in Sheffield for the second gig of The Changeling Resurrection II, with Zak Jenkinson. Zak plays bass guitar in The Silent Age, one of the support bands at The Corporation. View larger versions of the photos below at Dremscape’s TCRII Gallery. (Thanks to Zak Jenkinson)

• The Guardian: Cheryl Cole to Neil Young: The Week in Music: Pictures: And as well as Ms. Cole and old, everyone from Kiss to Psy rocked the world this week … Toyah Willcox performs at the Corporation in Sheffield on 29 September. (Thanks to Stephen Bennett Troake)

• Great photos of Toyah at Manchester Academy at talk | photography.

• Toyah brings The Changeling Resurrection II to the Islington Academy, London tomorrow night and Kings Lynn Corn Exchange on Sunday night.

• Ticket links and full details of the remainder of the 2012 tour dates are available at the gigs page at The Official Toyah Willcox Website.

• View all of our Changeling Resurrection II news here, and The Changeling Resurrection news here.

Another chance to hear the episode of The Lee Mack Show with Toyah appearing as his music/sketch guest.

The Lee Mack Show: BBC Radio 4 Extra
Saturday 27th October: 11.30pm
Episode Six of Six. Toyah Willcox joins the sharp comedian for stand-up, sketches and music. Originally aired on BBC Radio Two in April 2005, Toyah also performs ‘Sweet Child O Mine’. Also starring: Angela McHale, Steve Brown

Punk princess Toyah Willcox has named Croome Park, near Pershore, as her favourite place to take a walk. The actress and singer named the historic landscape park as her top spot as the National Trust launched a nationwide search to discover the country’s 10 Greatest British Walks.

• Continue reading at the Cotswold Journal.

The BBC have confirmed that ‘The Legacy Box’ will be the first Doctor Who DVD release of, the programme’s 50th anniversary year, 2013, being made available on Region 2 on 7th January and Region 1 the following day.

The two-disc set will include the “lost” Tom Baker episode Shada and the 1993 documentary More Than 30 Years in the TARDIS, in which Toyah appears. The set will also include numerous extras, including a feature on DW‘s first producer Verity Lambert.

Gered Mankowitz took some iconic, and memorable, photos of Toyah at the height of her, and the band’s, pop career in the early 1980s. A brief clip of him talking about working with Kate Bush and Toyah has recently been uploaded to You Tube. (Thanks to Stephen Bennett Troake)

British Gered Mankowitz, one of the world’s most prominent photographers in the music and artistic world. Here he talks about what it was like to work with Kate Bush & Toyah Willcox. His iconic images of The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Eurythmics, Marianne Faithfull and Kate Bush have become historic pieces of history that graced hundreds of magazine & album covers.

Three very rare photos of Toyah from three well-known 1980 photo sessions. (Thanks to Andi)

• The Alan Titchmarsh Show: Toyah guested on Alan’s ITV1 Afternoon chat show on Thursday 4th October, chatting about music from the Sixties. The full programme is still available to view at ITV Player for the next couple of weeks.

• Toyah and Derek Jarman: Toyah has contributed a chapter to a new book on Jubilee/The Tempest director Derek Jarman. She has also been offered a film role by a scriptwriter who worked with Jarman.

• Pick Of The Pops (BBC Radio 2: Saturday 20th October: 1pm): Tony Blackburn plays the biggest hits from this week in the charts of 1962 and 1981, with music from Brian Hyland, Ray Charles, Little Eva, Alvin Stardust, Ottowan and Toyah.

• London Evening Standard: Vanity Fair – or a night at Annabel’s: Toyah and Robert photographed out and about in London at the Nicholas Coleridge book launch last week.

• Do Believe The Hype: W 40th Anniversary Issue: Wasikowska channels full on 80s in snakeskin-print Balenciaga (looking like a cross between David Bowie’s make-up and Toyah Willcox’s hair).

• 80s Remix: Toyah – Echo Beach (Extended Surf Mix): Released in 1987, this cover version of the classic hit by Martha And The Muffins was Toyah Willcox’s last single to chart in the British Singles Chart, peaking at #54. The track was released as the lead single from Toyah’s second album as a solo artist, Desire, which failed to chart. One more single was released from the album entitled Moonlight Dancing.

Great footage of Toyah onstage at Manchester Academy performing ‘Brave New World’. Click below to view at You Tube. (Thanks to Paul Lomas)

View numerous clips from The Changeling Resurrection II at The Classic Grand, Glasgow.