Now and then (!!), someone asks about the history of this website – So here, with no expense spared and in association with Blowing Yer Own Trumpet Productions, it is…
She has been a household name since the eighties, and Toyah Willcox is heading to Gloucester Guildhall tonight (Dreamscape: It’s tomorrow night!) for an intimate gig with her band The Humans.
Toyah isn’t straying far from home when she plays at the Guildhall tonight. The Brummie-born singer lives just over the county border in Worcestershire.
“Looking back on my career I think I’m someone with a good voice who can express themselves,” says Toyah who lives in Pershore with her musician husband Robert Fripp.
“I don’t think you can define it by one subject. I’m a singer and an actress but I’ve also done very well as a businesswoman. But I like to create, I like to sing, I’m very good at that, I’m a good actress but I’m stylised. I can’t lose myself in a role so there’s limitations.”
Outspoken, free-spirited and strong-willed, on the surface Toyah appears to be your typical punk rock star. But she is now known for her smoky, jazz hall vocals.
• Continue reading at the Gloucestershire Echo. Browse Toyah & The Humans’ tour dates.
Toyah Willcox is one of the best-known and most versatile entertainers Birmingham has produced. Actor, TV presenter, businesswoman but most of all a singer, she is about to begin a tour which will feature her best-known work played acoustically. She told us about her upcoming Robin show.
“It’s acoustic, which is a lot of fun. I’ve been doing this show for a year now. It’s Colin Hinds from China Crisis and Chris Wong from my band, two acoustic guitars and myself. We do all the hits but I also do favourite tracks from my albums and I use film and visuals to tell behind the scenes stories, how certain images were created and how videos were made. It’s really irreverent, the whole point of the evening is fun, laughter and dance. The evening is very uplifting and what I find surprising is that the songs are more danceable in this format. It just works, the songs really shine and it’s been incredibly successful.”
You certainly seem very enthusiastic about it. Will this be something you do more of?
“It’s a regular thing because it’s very much in demand. A lot of people don’t want to go to rock clubs to hear an electric band so this show can go to other venues such as arts centres where the clientele are happy to sit and listen to someone talking about their life. But we’ve found that the show still maintains the energy and if anything it’s more intense because it goes from story to song and back again and it sounds very melodic, with a lot of light and shade. It takes me by surprise because when we started I honestly thought we’d do two shows and never do it again but I’m getting a standing ovation every ten minutes. People really get it.”
• Continue reading at The Birmingham Press.
• Frome Times: Toyah Willcox & Cara Dillon head exciting 2015 line-up at the Cheese & Grain: After a very busy 2014 the Cheese & Grain in Frome has an even busier and more exciting year ahead in 2015 – Continue reading…
• Kent Online: Britannia Theatre, Chatham… it has some equally popular names already booked for 2015, including The Selecter, Toyah, The Blockheads and The Buzzcocks – Continue reading…
• Somerset Guardian: Something for everyone at the Cheese & Grain: The Cheese and Grain is once again proving to be one of the best local music venues around with their 2015 line up looking to be their best yet – Continue reading…
• Gloucester Citizen: Our pick of shows in Gloucestershire this year: The following month, don’t miss Toyah Willcox and The Humans who will take centre stage at the Guildhall on April 14 – Continue reading…
• What’s on TV: This Is Your TV Life: Mel & Sue: Sue decided to show off her competitive side when she took part in Celebrity Masterchef in 2006, where she was pitted against Toyah Willcox in a professional kitchen – Continue reading…
• Press & Journal: Guitarist overcomes painful wrist condition to release new song: And now she is getting ready for a busy year, which will include supporting Toyah Willcox when she performs at Stonehaven Town Hall on September 18 and 19. Miss Esslemont, who is in her late 30s, said: “I can’t wait. She was in my favourite film, Quadrophenia. It’s every musician’s dream to support someone famous but when it’s a connection to your past, it’s all the more special. I’m very, very excited about it. It’s a great opportunity.” – Continue reading…
Christmas 2002, Toyah guested on Gloria Hunniford’s Open House on Channel 5. This was a panto special with Toyah in full costume, she talked about her panto for that year, Aladdin at The Anvil in Basingstoke, Calamity Jane and more.
“A singer, actress, and presenter who has brought punk to panto, Toyah Willcox…“
Gloria: You’ve lost so much weight!
Toyah: I’ve been touring Calamity Jane for months. It’s made me lean and mean!
Christopher Biggins: Her muscles are incredible
Toyah: I have to swing from rafters and I’m thrown everywhere. It’s good. And that’s just in my dressing room!
Gloria: It seems odd that someone who was always very different…panto seems to be almost tame.
Toyah: You think it’s tame to dress like a boy twice a day, go onstage and pretend to be male, and marry a woman at the end of the show? I think it’s the best thing anyone could ever do! I know what you’re saying. I don’t think I would ever have dreamt 20 years ago that I would have done panto. Now that I’ve done it for 10 years I’m passionately in love with it.
• Read a full transcript of Toyah’s interview here, and view larger versions of the screen caps here.
Hazel O’Connor recalls the famous Rainbow Theatre gig with The Stranglers from 1980 in a new interview at The Birmingham Press.
You’re touring with Hugh Cornwell now; he’s seen as a distinguished elder statesman of the music business which is a long way removed from the time you played a gig for him when he was in prison for drug possession.
“That was a night. The Stranglers were due to play the Rainbow but with Hugh in prison a few of us replaced him as singer, or rather tried to, because Hugh’s irreplaceable. Myself an Toyah did couple of songs, that was when I did Hanging Around for the first time. We were singing backing vocals on Peaches with Ian Dury singing. Toyah was dancing round the stage as she always does while Ian was scrabbling around on the floor trying to pick his hat up which she’d knocked off. Robert Smith was playing guitar as well, in his pre-make up days. I wish someone could find footage of it.
“It wasn’t so good for Hugh though – he was in prison for something he might not have been charged for now. The authorities were making an example of someone famous.”
• Continue reading at The Birmingham Press.
Since the mid-1980s, aspiring singer/songwriter, John Shuttleworth has been posting audio cassettes of his “finest songs to date” to pop stars throughout the land, in the hope that someone would record his material. But all to no avail.
However, the BBC has very kindly given John a series and asked him to invite pop starts to bring their music to his Sheffield home. So it is that Chas and Dave, Heaven 17, Toyah Willcox and Lee John find themselves in John’s lounge having tea with wife Mary, being flirted with by Mary’s friend Joan and hassled by John’s agent Ken Worthington, as they try and perform not only one their greatest hits but more importantly, one of John’s.
• Visit the BBC website. It looks likely that Toyah will guest on John’s show on either Sunday 27th July or 3rd August.
Stevie Bray’s band Jelly are hoping to play EssexFest 2014, and you can help them! Simply click below and like their video at You Tube. Jelly are a great band, it’s a great song (‘Say Hello’), and the animated video is pretty cool too. I’m sure many would agree it’s the least we can do to support someone who helped give us Toyah’s first three albums (and ‘Bird in Flight’).
• Browse all of Dreamscape’s Jelly news here. Visit their Official Website.
• Acoustic, Up Close & Personal: Toyah plays Lowther Pavilion, Lytham St. Annes on 20th February. The venue has created a promo video for the acoustic version of ‘Angels & Demons’. Book tickets for the Lowther here…
• Birmingham Mail: The 80s was a golden era for Martin Fry: “It was a golden age of British pop,” he grins. “Pop was much more flamboyant. Now there is Lady Gaga and I can see 80s elements in her fashion, but back then there were 100 Lady Gagas with singers like Toyah and Annie Lennox and it was all normal – Continue reading…
• Saga: A diet revolution or evolution?: By the way – Toyah Willcox. Should anyone be watching Splash! you will have seen her in her swimming suit. And very trim she looks too. I’m not surprised – I interviewed her a few years ago at her home and she is not only into extremely healthy eating, supplements, natural remedies and the like, but also would walk for miles up and down the very, very steep sides of the Malvern Hills near her home at every opportunity – Continue reading…
• Jelly: The band with former Toyah drummer Stevie Bray on vocals have a new album out and it’s now available at iTunes – Troubadour, Wizard, The Queen and the Machine is a brilliant debut – More info here…
• Whitby Goth Weekend Spring 2014: Promo video, including Toyah, at You Tube: A taster of the bands playing at Whitby Goth Weekend in April 2014 – View here…
• Splash!: Someone has uploaded a recording of Toyah’s dive to You Tube, so if anyone missed it or is outside the UK and can’t access the various online players, this is a chance to see it – View here…
Toyah filmed the new video by The Blockheads yesterday, playing a nurse. Also appearing are Wilko Johnson, Lee Thompson from Madness, The Slits, Topper Headon from The Clash and many others. Toyah tweeted: “Fun day making video with Blockheads…a bit of an epic……not being myself but someone else“, and @gavb, who originally tweeted the on-set photo, said: “Normal day at home today; we have Toyah Willcox dressed as a nurse in the front garden“. (Photo © Gav B)
A sweet reminsence about Toyah in “Brief Encounters With Famous People” at Vloggerheads.
My Mum’s hobby was knitting. She was an absolute EXPERT at hand-knitting Arran sweaters.
One day in the late 80’s, I got a call on my carphone (yeah – I had one of those – I thought I was the Dog’s Bollocks) telling me I should come over for tea – there was someone famous that was coming over she wanted me to meet.
Turns out that one of Mum’s friends worked in the music business and she was having sweaters knitted to give as special gifts to her clients. One of her clients was Toyah Willcox (yeah – I know – lots of you won’t even know who she was!) – and Toyah was so impressed, she wanted to meet the knitter and order some special sweaters.
That was a surreal evening – Toyah was at the house for about 2 hours chatting with Mum about patterns and wool. I just sat transfixed. She was absolutely beautiful in real life – nothing like her stage persona at all.
Mum knitted special-order Arran sweaters for Toyah Willcox and her friends from 1987 right up until her death in 2003. I always told her that they were rich and famous and she wasn’t charging them enough! :-)
• Visit the blog at Vloggerheads.
Toyah is mentioned in The Telegraph‘s review of the, recently published, Derek Jarman’s Sketchbooks.
Derek Jarman’s Sketchbooks, ed. Stephen Farthing and Ed Webb-Ingall, review
Tim Robey is absorbed by the creative mind of film-maker and artist Derek Jarman, as revealed through his extraordinary sketchbooks
The nicest touch is that each chapter gets a separate commentary, too, by someone involved in a working relationship with Jarman at that time. Toyah Willcox, who starred in Jubilee, talks about the excitement of being an 18-year-old virgin from an all-girls school when she first arrived at Jarman’s Edwardian flat to find naked men cavorting around.
• Continue reading at The Telegraph.
• The Thread: Win… Human League, Howard Jones, and Toyah Willcox at Tatton Park: Canalside’s The Thread has been given two tickets by Producer Rupert Hine to the Human League concert featuring Howard Jones and Toyah Willcox at Tatton Park on Saturday 20th July – Continue here to enter…
• You Tubing with One Voice: One Voice at Rotherham’s New York Stadium – A short clip of Toyah hosting – Continue here to listen…
• Rotherham Advertiser: All together as One: Hundreds of Rotherham youngsters were joined by eighties pop star Toyah Willcox to bring a massive summer celebration to a tuneful close – Continue reading…
• Steve Lamacq’s Roundtable: Toyah’s most recent guest appearance on the ‘BBC 6Music’ show is no longer online at ‘BBC iPlayer’ but the programme is still available as a podcast. Download it from iTunes or from the BBC Podcasts & Downloads page (Episodes available for 30 days from broadcast).
• Auntie Muriel’s Blog: Who’s Pulling The Strings: The Anthem album cover (below) depicts the teenage-psyche-nightmare-place with the central figure, Toyah herself, striding fearlessly across this inhospitable wasteland. She is distant, powerful, beautiful, and it looks as if she’s holding the head of someone who got on her nerves once too often – Continue reading…
A new show at the V&A celebrates the creativity of the 80s clubbing and fashion scenes in London. We find out what inspired the decade’s cool kids. We asked those who were there about dressing up, making images and dancing till dawn.
Toyah Willcox on the pop wardrobe: “Melissa Caplan made my costumes from the 70s to the mid-80s. I was very influenced by futurism and reading a lot of Marge Piercy. Look and image were very important – there was already incredible pressure to look feminine and sexy but I wanted to look individual and strong. I didn’t have any role models except Little Nell from The Rocky Horror Picture Show. I remember stepping out on to the stage in 1981 at Hammersmith Odeon and seeing row after row of people looking identical. Every image I created was like setting a fire off in someone’s mind.”
Toyah Willcox is a singer and actor
• Continue reading at The Guardian.
• The Crack: We’re Here! We’re Queer! We’re Watching A Nice Bit Of Toyah!: Toyah! Amelia! Katrina! (From the Waves)! Someone pretending to be Steps! It can only mean that Newcastle Pride 2013 is nigh and about to shower you in excitement… And then there is Toyah. She scored huge success in the 80s with hits such as “It’s A Mystery”, “Thunder In The Mountains” and “I Want To Be Free” but here she’ll be showing off her experimental drone-noise (only kidding – she’ll be playing the hits).
• Bring The Noise: Film Feature: Top 5 Motorbike Movies: Quadrophenia: Perhaps more of a moped, rather than motorbike film but this 1979 film by Franc Roddam remains an iconic moment in British cinema. Starring Phil Daniels, Mark Wingett, Philip Davies, Lesley Ash, Toyah Willcox and, er… Sting…
• BBC Radio Solent: Read a full transcript of Toyah’s recent interview on Alex Dyke’s show at The Toyah Willcox Interview Archive.
• Tomorrow Calling: The 1993 short film Toyah starred in, Tomorrow Calling, played at the ‘Love Architecture Festival’ in Marget-On-Sea last Sunday: A short film adaptation of William Gibson’s The Gernsback Continuum. Bill is shooting architectural photographs of ‘futuristic’ buildings of the 1930s for a coffee table book, but as he frames up a deco bingo hall, a vast airship looms overhead… starring Colin Salmon, Don Henderson and Toyah Wilcox. 12 minutes duration, certificate 15.
• Midlands Today: A short interview with Toyah, on Midlands Today, at Melissa Mailer-Yates’ exhibition in 2008 just uploaded to ‘You Tube’.
• As everyone knows Toyah and Robert guested on tonight’s All Star Mr & Mrs on ITV. It’s now available to watch online (for UK residents only) at ITV Player for the next 28 days. It’s also available at UTV Player.
• The programme will also be repeated on ITV this coming Saturday at 12.30pm.
• STV Player are using a great photo of Toyah in their index of episodes of the series. View here.
• All Star Mr & Mrs Facebook: Backstage with singer Toyah Willcox & husband, guitarist Robert Fripp! – Congrats to Toyah & Robert, they won £5,000 for St. Richard’s Hospice, Worcester.
• Overnight viewing figures for tonight’s edition will be announced tomorrow. Last week’s programme was watched by almost four million people, though that will probably be over 5m when the final figures are released.
• Those Twitter folks were agog, tweeting: “Toyah Willcox & hubby are just so adorable!!“, “Awwww.. How sweet are Toyah Wilcox and her hubby Robert Fripp” and someone who doesn’t know that Toyah is only 54!!, “I want to be like Robert and Toyah when I’m old“… etc.
• The power of a prime time TV appearance. In the couple of hours after All Star Mr & Mrs aired tonight Dreamscape has had FIVE times as many visitors as it usually does.
• The last fortnight has been quite entertaining. Every time I’ve searched for Toyah news online there have been Fripp/King Crimson fans aghast at this programme lol!
A selection of recent Hormonal Housewives reviews.
• Shropshire Star: Review: Hormonal Housewives, Wolverhampton Grand: A tiny sprinkling of very brave males turned out in support of their WAGS at Wolverhampton Grand Theatre last night, as 1980s pop princess Toyah Willcox and the cast of Hormonal Housewives flew into town on their broomsticks to begin a run of this hilarious comedy. It’s a light-hearted look at all things female through the eyes of three middle- aged woman, and providing you can see the humour in someone else’s sex life, PMS, bodily functions and other personal aspects of growing older, you’ll be entertained. (Photo © Shropshire Star)
• This is Devon: Review: Ellie Cox sees Hormonal Housewives at the Queen’s Theatre: Lighthearted sense of humour? Check. Gaggling group of girls? Check. Lover of sparkle, pink fluff and gym lycra? Check. If you ticked all of the above criteria, then this is a show for you.
• It’s On Cardiff: Hormonal Housewives: I have to say, I haven’t belly laughed like that in a long time! The show was packed with humour from start to finish as the ladies acted out different sketches on stage (with the help of their not-so-fetching male accomplice – Zeus), portraying different scenarios in a woman’s life.
Toyah will guest on a future edition of the long-running BBC Radio 4 series Ramblings. The programme in which, the fantastic (yes I’m a fan ;)), Clare Balding joins notable and interesting people on a walk through the countryside.
Earlier today Clare tweeted: “Today I am walking with Toyah Wilcox for Ramblings. She has a bad ankle so it may be more of a shuffle“. Someone then replied telling her that “Wilcox” was “Willcox”, and there then followed a series of tweets which, if Twitter had existed, could have been posted anytime between 1987 and now: 
“It’s a Mystery“, “turning suburbia upside down“, “Mum deodorant“… Such fun! Clare’s tweet was also posted by Celeb Tweets (Not being a follower of Twitterers, I have to admit this is where I first spotted it).
Series 23 of Ramblings begins on BBC Radio 4 next Thursday (7th February) at 3pm. More details on when Toyah will guest when the information becomes available.
UPDATE: Toyah has also tweeted about Ramblings (including this great photo of herself and Clare): “Recording radio 4 Ramblings with claire balding, I’m very slow, still limping“. View the original photo here. (Photo © Toyah Willcox)
• How You Feel: Learning To Love British Film: Jubilee: Derek Jarman doesn’t usually pull too many miseryguts Brit flick clichés, and in his punk outing Jubilee – actually one of the only films about punk made in the brief time punk wasn’t dead – he should be even more innovative and outrageous than usual.
• Arran Art: An (Odd) Day in the Dark: The Tempest will be screened at Arran’s free mini-film festival next month (Saturday 2nd February). 3.15-4.45pm – The Tempest: Derek Jarman’s 1979 idiosyncratic adaptation of Shakespeare’s Tempest with Toyah Willcox as Miranda. Forget any notions of worthiness – this film challenges the idea of ‘faithful’ literary adaptation and celebrates the visual magic of cinema as thoroughly as the magical arts of Prospero.
• T-Shirts: Fancy a Toyah-related t-shirt? ‘WeAdmire.net’ have Jubilee and Quadrophenia apparel for sale.
• Steve Lamacq’s Roundtable: The edition of Roundtable from ‘BBC 6Music’ in which Toyah was a guest is available to listen to/download via ‘Castroller’. This originally aired in November 2012.
• Folkestone People: Hormonal Housewives come to Leas Cliff Hall: Eighties pop star Toyah Willcox is to appear in sketch show Hormonal Housewives, showing at Leas Cliff Hall later this year.
• Morning Star: Culture: Heathcote Williams – The Queen of Diamonds: Toyah’s co-star in The Tempest.
• A full transcript of Bev Meets… Toyah Willcox, which aired a couple of times over Christmas on ‘BBC WM’, is now available at the really great ‘Toyah Willcox Interview Archive’.
• Love Me: One of my favourite Toyah songs. From the magnificent ‘The Blue Meaning’. I never thought I’d hear someone covering it but littletroll has done just that. Listen at Soundcloud.
• A great rare shot of Toyah, from the ‘Good Morning Universe’ European Tour, 1981, from photo website Magnolia Box. (Thanks to Lärwi)
• Alban Arena: Toyah Willcox Back At The Alban Arena!: A short article on Hormonal Housewives.
• From My Mental Library: A book review blog post that mentions that Toyah is namechecked in Jack Sheffield’s 2011 book ‘Please Sir’: A new year at Ragley-On-The-Forest school… It’s 1981, the time of Adam and the Ants, Rubik’s Cube, the Sony Walkman and the Falklands War, as head teacher Jack Sheffield returns to Ragley-on-the-Forest School for another rollercoaster year. “Rubik’s cube was selling like there was no tomorrow, girls modelled their looks on Toyah Willcox, a few daring young men began to wear black eyeliner, and the Falklands War was on the horizon.” More info on the book at Amazon.
• Digital Spy: Someone at the DS forum has started a ridiculous (if this does happen I’ll apologise for that ;)) rumour that Toyah is joining the EE cast… as an Australian! Barmy!!
• Bev Meets… Toyah Willcox, which aired on ‘BBC WM’ yesterday, is now available, until Sunday 30th December, at BBC iPlayer. It’s a great hour-long special with Toyah talking about her early life, growing up and her career, as well as choosing some of her favourite songs. She also talks about her plans for 2013. Toyah chose tracks by T-Rex, Lou Reed, Roxy Music, Nirvana, David Bowie, Lana Del Ray, Muse, Tasmin Archer and The Rolling Stones. Listen here.
• It’s Slade, the 1999 documentary that’s been repeated several times on ‘BBC Four’ over the past few days, is also available to view at BBC iPlayer for the next week. Toyah pops up sporadically talking about the band. Watch here.
• Today sees the final box to open at Toyah’s Christmas Countdown at toyahwillcox.com – Check out Twenty Four From Toyah at Soundcloud.
• A third clip from The Resurrection Live Sessions has been uploaded to ‘Vimeo’. It’s Brave New World. ‘Angel and Me’ and ‘Danced’ are also available.
• David Hepworth’s Blog: The former Editor of ‘Smash Hits’, commented in his blog yesterday, on something Toyah said in Neil 
Tennant’s Smash Hits Christmas: The harmless TV fun of today may produce the scandals of tomorrow: Toyah Willcox said an interesting thing on this week’s programme on Radio Four about Smash Hits when talking about the relatively benign world of 80s pop stardom. “Nowadays,” she said, “I think of fame as something dark and abusive.”
• Smash Hits Archive: The December 23, 1982 – January 5, 1983 issue of ‘Smash Hits’ is now online – It includes a brief comment from Toyah talking about her Christmas 1982 plans: It’ll Be Homely This Christmas: Toyah’s off to Italy just before Christmas, because she’s got a hit single there at the moment, but she’s flying back on Christmas Eve. “I always spend Christmas with my parents – it’s the only time I get to spend with them. And I’ll be getting ready for a busy next year.”
• Daily Mail: Ever felt that someone’s watching over you?: Toyah was mentioned in a ‘Daily Mail’ article yesterday on Guardian Angels: Toyah Willcox and Myleene Klass have also talked about their faith in them.
