Dreamscape – Toyah Willcox Fansite

Toyah is currently receiving a lot of praise for her performance in the, just released,  Doctor Who related audio drama, Children Of The Circus, in the role(s) of The Band of Infinite Harmony.

Sci Fi Bulletin: Toyah Willcox is spectacular as the Band of Infinite Harmony, a gestalt musician maimed into something approaching harmonious perfection by the Gods of Ragnarok

Warped Factor: Joining them is 1980s icon Toyah Willcox, who plays The Band of Infinite Harmony, a multi-voiced role that she relishes, culminating in a solo song featured as a bonus track.

• So, here’s that question again – When is RTD (Russell T. Davies, Doctor Who showrunner) going to get his arse in gear and cast Toyah in the main, BBC, series? (Image/Logo © BBC/Disney)

This month is huge for Doctor Who and Whovians all over the planet – It’s Who’s 60th Anniversary on 23rd November – and it’s just been announced Toyah is a cast member of a new Doctor Who inspired audio drama, released on 14th December.

Children of the Circus is a new, original, musical play (on audio) based on Doctor Who’s The Greatest Show in the Galaxy by Stephen Wyatt. Out 14 Dec, Toyah stars as The Band Of Infinite Harmony alongside a reunited cast including Sylvester McCoy (Seventh Doctor) and Sophie Aldred (Ace).

Starring Christopher Guard as Bellboy, Dee Sadler as Flowerchild and Ella, Sophie Aldred as Captain Gren and AJ, Toyah Willcox as The Band of Infinite Harmony, Ian Reddington as Delios and the Chief Clown, and Sylvester McCoy as the High Poet.

With Daisy Dunlop, Verity White, Kim Jones, Kenton Hall, Barnaby Eaton-Jones and Ian Kubiak.

Special guest appearances by Ricco Ross as The Ringmaster, Jessica Martin as Mags, Chris Jury as Deadbeat, Deborah Manship as Morgana, Gian Sammarco as Whizz Kid, Daniel Peacock as Nord, and Dean Hollingsworth as the Bus Conductor and Station Announcer.

Produced and directed by Barnaby Eaton-Jones, for AUK Studios.

• Further info at toyahwillcox.com and doctorwhonews.com. Pre-order the limited-edition 2CD set here.

‘It shouldn’t be a big deal – but it is’: what a female Doctor Who really means to women Whovians

More than eight million people tuned in Sunday night’s episode of Doctor Who – the show’s largest launch in a decade – to see Jodie Whittaker make her debut as the first female Doctor in the show’s decades-long history.  But did she pull it off?

Among those glued to their sofas were the comedians Bridget Christie and Susan Calman, authors Juno Dawson and Jenny Colgan, and the pop star Toyah Willcox – a Who fan who was once mooted for the title role herself. The Telegraph asked each of them what the arrival of a female Doctor means to them, and what they thought of Sunday’s episode.

• Continue reading at The Telegraph. (Subscription Required)

All four of the recent ‘BBC America’ Doctor Who Specials are being reshown this weekend as part of the channel’s marathon DW Day. A 22-hour feast of Who! Toyah appears in at least three of the specials (though probably all four as I missed the first one).

The Science Of Doctor Who: BBC America: Saturday 1st September: 00.00am
Explore the real life science behind the biggest concepts and most iconic ideas in the incredible Doctor Who universe.

The Women Of Doctor Who: BBC America: Saturday 1st September: 1.00am
Behind every great time lord there’s a great woman. Whether they’re busting Daleks or the Doctor’s ego, the women of ‘Doctor Who’ prove that you don’t need testosterone to save the universe.

The Timey-Wimey Of Doctor Who: BBC America: Saturday 1st September: 2.00am
When the Doctor’s around, tomorrow is yesterday, yesterday is tomorrow and 18th century France is in your fireplace. Confused yet? Watch the Timey-Wimey of Doctor Who. You’ve already seen it in the future.

The Destinations Of Doctor Who: BBC America: Saturday 1st September: 3.00am
Leave the beach towel at home and take a trip to the end of the earth – literally. From the Starship UK to one very haunted hotel, you won’t find the destinations of “Doctor Who” in any guidebook.

Toyah guested in the final ‘BBC America’ Doctor Who docu special, The Destinations Of Doctor Who, on Saturday night. Here’s a transcript of what she said:

Toyah on Starship UK (the spaceship/mini planet on the S5 episode ‘The Beast Below’): “Starship UK is this circular, metal planet floating through space BURSTING with skyscrapers because they’ve run out of… space… The amazing think about the people on this planet, they’re all so busy living for themselves and for the quality of their own life that they don’t realise that they’re actually being supported by a kindly, old saviour.”

On Gallifrey (The Doctor’s home planet): “It’s quite clever that the Doctor does not fit in with the map of what these other Timelords are. they’re all completely different, with very different agendas. But they’re all fighting for their survival. It’s wonderful that the immortals are threatened.”

On the destinations of Doctor Who: “The destinations that you go to in Doctor Who are always really surprising, they open out to reveal something completely different. You never quite know the reality of the destination.”

On Satellite Five (the space station in the episodes ‘Bad Wolf’ & ‘The Parting Of The Ways’): “Christopher Eccleston suddenly appears in this brightly coloured room, which is really confusing, and he’s suddenly in Big Brother, and he’s taking part in a gamshow. Of course! My favourite bit is The Weakest Link, where Ann Robinson is actually a robot and she has the power to destroy.”

• Screen caps of Toyah from The Destinations of DW coming soon. (Thanks to Paul Lomas)

Please excuse the alliteration and also my self indulgence, though I’m hopefully also indulging other Toyah/Doctor Who fans out there: My two favourite ‘things’ beginning with “T”. Toyah and the TARDIS, but not just one, three of them! These are taken from the recent ‘BBC America’ Doctor Who documentary specials, the last of which, The Destinations Of Doctor Who, aired on Saturday. View all of Dreamscape’s DW updates by clicking below.

Toyah did, after all, guest in Saturday night’s third documentary special, The Time-Wimey Of Doctor Who, on ‘BBC America’. Here is a transcript of what she said.

Toyah on Rose Tyler in the epsiode ‘Father’s Day’: “Rose Tyler is human. She’s made like all humans, to nurture and save, and she sees her father and she has a chance to save him… So she saves him from the car hitting him, and all hell breaks loose. It cracks a moment in time, where these demons, these gargoyles, can come to life.”

On the Doctor and instant time travel, specifically from the episode ‘The Big Bang’: “He can go like that (clicks fingers) and he’s with one person, and he can be having a conversation with that, and he can go like that (clicks fingers) and he’s back in another time having a conversation with someone else. ‘Oh! I forgot to say something’ (clicks fingers), and he’s back somewhere else!”

On Doctor Who and its effect on viewers: “What the writers of Doctor Who manage is to broaden our perceptions, broaden our beliefs, broaden our horizons. They get it brilliantly correct every time.”

• Screen caps of Toyah from Timey-Wimey coming soon. (Thanks to Paul Lomas)

As mentioned a few times over the last week, Toyah guested on The Women Of Doctor Who on ‘BBC America’ at the weekend. Here is a full transcript of what she said during the 45-minute special.

Toyah on Rose Tyler: “She’s a wonderfully refreshing heroine, that sets the standard for heroines in other sci-fi series”; on Nu-Who: “Because I’ve watched Doctor Who for almost 50 years, I’m not used to this raw, human emotion that’s coming out in the modern version of the drama.”

Toyah on Martha Jones: “I love the moment when Martha Jones just turns to the Doctor and says ‘I’m not staying, I’m not gonna waste my time waiting for a man’, so good on her! Girl power!”; on the TARDIS/Idris: “Now you’d think the TARDIS, which is 700 years old, if it was to become flesh it would actually be a bloke, a man, in a boiler suit, covered in tar, covered in the muck of machinery, but no…”; on Donna Noble: “You get this scene, where they’re both kind of stuck. She’s great at Vaudeville, and that’s what this moment is. It’s classic comedy.”

Toyah on Sarah Jane Smith: “What is lovely about their bond, it’s not a sexual magnetism, it’s a genuine, eternal loving bond”; on Rose & Sarah Jane: “This moment where they realised they’re united in how special they are for having had those experiences, and they start laughing. Quite madly”; on River Song: “River Song is beautiful, glamourous… She is better at operating the TARDIS than the Doctor is, and for the first time you see him actually being quite put out at that… A lovely twist, is when River Song is about to be shot by Amy Pond, and suddenly she says ‘I’m doing this because I am your daughter’, and there’s this wonderful moment of recognition.”

Toyah on Lady Cassandra: “There’s this wonderful scene where all these dignitaries from around the universe are coming together, they’re converging to see the death of Planet Earth… She has been stretched so far that she is, literally, like a pinned piece of leather. Drying out… She arrives with all these medical staff who have to spray her and keep her moist”; on Joan Redfern: “You can see that for the first time the Doctor is falling in love as a human being, and he falls in love with her”; on female companions in general: “They have their vulnerabilities, and perhaps it’s because of those vulnerabilites that Doctor Who can experience human emotions a bit more.”

The, soon to be aired, first episode of Series 7 (aka Season 33) of Doctor Who has more Daleks than ever before, and this weekend Toyah guests in the ‘BBC America’ documentary The Women Of Doctor Who – so now seems as good a time as any to post this!!! Skaro’s finest definitely have good taste (though their marketing techniques are a little extreme).

Not a “campaign”, just something fun and lighthearted…

The charity Doctor Who book, ‘Behind The Sofa’, in which Toyah contributes a memory, will go ahead after all.

‘Radio Times’ reported in early March:

Doctor Who charity book threatened by PayPal dispute: Behind the Sofa may not be published after payments frozen

Behind the Sofa, a limited-edition charity book full of celebrities’ reminiscences about Doctor Who, may not now be published following the decision of online payments service PayPal to freeze the account of the project’s organiser.

All profits from the 200-page book were to be given to Alzheimer’s Research UK. But payments for pre-orders – which were to be used by editor Steve Berry to fund the manufacture and distribution of the book – have today been frozen by PayPal.

PayPal had been taking payments directly by credit and debit card, as well as from customers with PayPal accounts. Berry may now have to fund the book himself.

The book was to feature contributions from, among many others: Paul Whitehouse, Michael Grade, Rufus Hound, Stephen Merchant, Charlie Brooker, Hugh Bonneville, Al Murray, Bill Oddie, Chris Chibnall, Jeremy Dyson, Jonathan Ross, Josie Long, Terrance Dicks, Martina Cole, Mitch Benn, Neil Gaiman, Nicholas Parsons, Paul Cornell, Toyah Willcox and Tracy Ann Oberman.

• Read the full article, at the ‘Radio Times’ website, here.