“Jubilee is a wrap. Thanks to the entire team & all our audiences x“, Toyah tweeted. She also Instagrammed: “Goodnight LIZZIE. What an astonishing last show. Thank u all. It has been a privilege“. (Photo © Official Toyah)
• Browse a summary of many of the reviews for Jubilee at the Lyric at toyahwillcox.com. See all of Dreamscape’s London news on Jubilee here and the Manchester production here.
NO FUTURE: Brendan Macdonald reviews Chris Goode’s stage version of Derek Jarman’s Jubilee
“It’s funny isn’t it? In 1977, someone shouting NO FUTURE sounded like the most extreme nihilistic punk. Forty years on, it’s a fact. It’s mainstream climate science.”
As Amyl Nitrate (played by Travis Alabanza) perceives, ‘NO FUTURE’ was once a rallying cry of the punk movement, not just a closing refrain to a Sex Pistols anthem. It spoke of a stark fatalism imbued with fury, frustration, and a deep distrust in the current status quo. Chris Goode’s adaptation of Derek Jarman’s 1978 film Jubilee toys with this articulation, hurtling the punk movement into a future that seemingly shouldn’t exist, to see how it survives.
Goode’s adaptation spars with Jarman’s film, keeping faithful to the central tenets of the piece while modernizing it to reflect the current age. It’s messy, chaotic, sex-fueled, and driven more by affect than narrative. Queen Elizabeth I, brilliantly played by one of the film’s original stars Toyah Willcox, travels to the present day with the help of Lucy Ellinson’s Ariel, and passively witnesses the countercultural energy that’s brewing beneath 21st century neoliberal consumerism.
• Continue reading at Exeunt Magazine. Read Exeunt Magazine’s review of Jubilee at Royal Exchange, Manchester, here.
Chris Goode’s riotous adaptation of Derek Jarman’s seminal film about anarchy in the UK is not for the faint hearted. Featuring simulated sex, unrestrained nudity and mindless acts of violence, this provocative stage version will undoubtedly divide audiences, just as Jarman did in 1978.
Toyah Willcox, who starred as the pyromaniac Mad in the film version, now plays Queen Elizabeth I observing the excesses of a group of friends sharing a squat in Brexit Britain.
Amyl Nitrate (an electrifying performance by Travis Alabanza) serves as our emcee for the evening. Sexual predator Crabs (Rose Wardlaw) lures unsuspecting men home where they often meet a brutal and untimely end, while Bod (Sophie Stone) is the murderous de facto leader of the gang, Ariel, an ethereal presence (Lucy Ellinson), links segments and time.
• Continue reading at the New Camden Journal. (Review by Lucy Popescu)
• Culture Whisper: From the royal box, the time-travelling Queen Elizabeth I (Toyah Willcox, who played pyromaniac teenager Mad in the the original film 40 years ago) lords over proceedings like a dutiful monarch at the Royal Variety Show – and make no mistake, Jubilee is as perfectly random as the Royal Variety. It wilfully defies all theatrical convention, addressing the audience and breaking the wall to provide a sneering commentary on its own construction – Continue reading at Culture Whisper…
• Boyz Magazine: However it is the presence of Toyah Willcox, an original cast member of the 1977 film, who plays Elizabeth I, that really gives this show weight. Her command of the role is extraordinary and as the show draws to a close its fitting that one of her own songs closes the proceedings. Crazy stuff! – Continue reading at Boyz Magazine…
• Essential Surrey: This provocative and theatrical show reinvents Jarman’s Jubilee for the present day, whilst clearly still clinging onto the punk subculture it was based on. Characterised by anti-establishment views and general anarchy, it is every bit as loud and aggressive as you would expect. The play opens in the same manner as the film with Queen Elizabeth I, starring original cast member Toyah Willcox, time travelling forward into a bleak and destitute contemporary Britain – Continue reading at Essential Surrey…
• Stage Review: In the film Toyah Willcox played angry rebel, Mad. Now the 59-year-old punk princess has been elevated to Queen Elizabeth I and she spends most of the production in the theatre’s royal box, watching the action on stage, occasionally breaking into monologues. The Queen is given a vision of the future, and its dystopian desolation initially fills her with pain, before she finds herself sympathising with the group’s radical social commentary – Continue reading at Stage Review…
• A Younger Theatre: Jubilee is superb in its metatheacricality, realising the elements of stagecraft present within Jarman’s film. The script cleverly observes the forty years of cultural change since ’77 and is playful in its interaction with members of the audience. It is absurd, with a peculiar, ravenous kind of beauty and it will leave you craving a cigarette lit by a blaze fiercer than hell on earth – Continue reading at A Younger Theatre…
• The Upcoming: Chris Goode’s stage adaptation of Derek Jarman and James Whaley’s cult classic punk film, Jubilee (1978), can only be described as a wild ride. Semi-plotless, kinky and violent, Jubilee the play is a vintage punk romp amended to include a far more diverse cast, and to rail against today’s troubling political climate, both at home and abroad. Indeed, it seems only natural to apply that old punk rage to 2018, and the violent dystopia that we’re presented with is often all too believable – Continue reading at The Upcoming…
Mark Shenton: How do audiences and critics react when a show is designed to provoke them?
At the start of the second act of Jubilee, the stage version of Derek Jarman’s 1978 film that has transferred from Manchester’s Royal Exchange to the Lyric Hammersmith, one of the performers surveys the audience and notes that there have obviously been some early departures.
I was very nearly one of them. I decided that I would spare myself – and the show – the need to write a review (because it is of course a total no-no to do so after only seeing half a production). But, after leaving the theatre in the interval to get a little bit of sugar comfort, I went back.
After the show, I tweeted what a bad time I’d had, and my colleague Lyn Gardner replied: “Oh narrowly missed out on being in my top ten shows last year. I loved it.”
When I searched out her original review of that run, I found she cautioned: “Don’t think of leaving at the interval: the first half may drag a little, but the payoff is delivered in the show’s final 50 minutes, in which fierce energy gives way to aching loss as a generation with no future searches for a phoenix in the ashes.”
• Continue reading at The Stage.
The late Derek Jarman had a reputation as an iconic but iconoclastic filmmaker but, even by his standards, Jubilee was eccentric and frequently any meanings were too deeply buried for common or garden viewers to mine. It is now probably best remembered for a cast that included punk idols Toyah Willcox and Adam Ant, along with a dedicated team from the acting profession amongst whom was the late Ian Charleson.
40 years on, Chris Goode has taken the original film script, which Jarman wrote with James Whaley, and updated it for a fresh generation. Give the new writer-director credit, what should have been an unintelligible, unruly mess is always over the top, frequently rather fun and conveys some timely messages to its audience today.
Many of those present will not even have been born in the days when punk threatened to change British society forever. Like Queen Elizabeth, whose pontifications along with those of her alchemist and necromancer John Dee and ethereal Ariel frame the modern scenes, it is merely a short historical note that may well have passed them by.
In a happy connection with the original, punk Queen Toyah Willcox embodies the Virgin Queen having played Mad on celluloid so long ago. She also provides one of the evening’s highlights with a brief but lively rendition of “I Want to Be Free”.
• Continue reading at British Theatre Guide. Review by Philip Fisher.
A fiercely powerful staging of Derek Jarman’s punk classic
People have been pontificating on what punk is – if it’s sold out, if it’s dead – pretty much since it showed up. So I’m not going to join them. Except to say that if anyone’s keeping the ripped Union Jack flag flying, it’s got to be queer people of colour who are risking everything to live outside the rules of a heteronormative, post-Brexit society. Chris Goode’s play, transferring to Lyric Hammersmith after opening at Royal Exchange Manchester, gets this. He reimagines Derek Jarman’s 1978 punk cult movie ‘Jubilee’ just enough to make it speak to today, but leaves its wild nihilist momentum intact.
It’s set in a squat (although this being 2018, it’s probably a warehouse share) where the cast bicker, wheel a pram on fire around, violently demolish the patriarchy, rewrite history, and watch YouTube videos. Travis Alabanza (playing Amyl Nitrate, the group’s historian) brings us up to speed on this show’s world, and pretty much anticipates every possible criticism of it: ‘Welcome to ‘Jubilee’. An iconic film most of you have never even heard of, adapted by an Oxbridge twat for a dying medium, spoiled by millennials, ruined by diversity, and constantly threatening to go all interactive. You poor fuckers.’
• Continue reading at Time Out. Review by Alice Saville.
Jubilee, Lyric, Hammersmith, London, review: In the Lyric Hammersmith’s fine tradition of reanimating controversial classics
Chris Goode’s stage adaptation of Derek Jarman’s 1977 punk classic ‘Jubilee’, recasts Toyah Willcox who played Mad in the film, as Queen Elizabeth I, who time-travels to today
“It’s funny, isn’t it?” says Amyl Nitrate, towards the end of the end of Chris Goode’s raucous, shrewd and free-wheelingly rude re-imagining of Derek Jarman’s cult movie. “In 1977, someone shouting “NO FUTURE” sounded like the most extreme nihilistic punk. Forty years on, it’s a fact. It’s mainstream climate science.” To mark the ruby jubilee of Jubilee (1978), Goode’s stage version — a co-production between his company, the Lyric, Hammersmith and Manchester’s Royal Exchange — does more than pay tribute to the inherent theatricality in Jarman’s apocalyptic vision or recreate the paradoxical ethos of a broken Britain sodden with royalist propaganda during that flag-waving year.
• Continue reading at The Independent. Review by Paul Taylor.
Chris Goode’s adaptation of Derek Jarman and James Whaley’s Jubilee was a ravenously sex-fueled and unvarnished representation of the state that the world is in.
It assures to have one question if royalty or religion are still relevant in an ever-changing society.
Toyah Willcox goes from rebel to regal as she makes a comeback having played Mad in the original movie and now bringing delightful grace to the stage as Elizabeth I. Unsurprisingly she owns every second of her role as an onlooker from the past. Jubilee’s blatant dialogue and minimal use of symbolism makes for a refreshing take on what are usually controversial topics. It is explicit beginning to end and makes no apologies for it.
• Continue reading at GScene. Review by Tin Nguyen.
Check out Broadway World’s five star review of Jubilee at the Lyric Hammersmith – “Sexy, riotous, celebratory and a bloody good night out“.
Jubilee is an event that fucks with every theatrical convention, but it also provokes its audience in the most important way. Derek Jarman’s iconic film has been adapted for the stage by Chris Goode, centring around a marauding girl gang on a killing spree and a time-travelling Queen Elizabeth I – telling a story of what happens when creativity and nihilism collide.
The company hold nothing back – be it via nudity, crassness or direct address, they actively attempt to make you feel something. And I imagine you’ll feel a lot, even if it’s the sensation of being uncomfortable. Which is good; you should be.
After the interval you can tell who the non-progressive, potentially prejudicial people were in the audience. As Act Two begins many seats are now empty. People have left due to their own insecurities and biases around seeing naked flesh on stage, or as Travis Alabanza calls it, “one too many ballsacks”.
• Continue reading at Broadway World. Review by Alistair Wilkinson. (Photo © Tristram Kenton – Visit the Lyric Hammersmith’s Facebook page to see a great gallery of Tristram’s Jubilee production photos)
This week’s best theatre shows: Our critics’ picks (February 20)
Jubilee – Lyric Hammersmith, London
Chris Goode directs and adapts a stage version of Derek Jarman and James Whaley’s 1978 film Jubilee, in a production first seen at Manchester’s Royal Exchange last November. The Stage called it “scrappy and self-aware”, but veteran punk star Toyah Willcox, who also appeared in the original film, makes it interesting to see again. It opens officially on February 20.
• Continue reading at The Stage.
• The Independent: Why The Sudden Rash Of Movies Onstage Now?: And it’s not just van Hove; theatre has been experiencing a boomlet of movie adaptations. Derek Jarman’s punk-inflected Jubilee (1978), adapted by Chris Goode, opens at the Lyric Theatre after earning rave reviews at the Royal Exchange in Manchester – Continue reading at The Independent…
• London Evening Standard: Things to do in London this weekend (and next week too): 3. Anarchy in the UK: Jubilee – Derek Jarman’s 1978 state-of-the-nation punk film has been adapted for the stage by Chris Goode – Continue reading at the London Evening Standard…
• London Evening Standard: London Arts: The best art, theatre, dance and concerts to see this week: Jubilee – Embrace the spirit of punk this week as the Lyric heads back to 1977 for a stage adaptation of Derek Jarman’s cult classic film. Expect a time-travelling Queen Elizabeth I, DIY fashion, sex, swearing, and a very loud soundtrack – Continue reading at the London Evening Standard…
• London Theatreland: Jubilee, Lyric Hammersmith: “An explosive, no-holds-barred punk musical that’ll set your world on fire!” – Capturing the punk wave at its dizzying height, English film director Derek Jarman captured the spirit of the rebellious era of the late 70s. Now his seminal work is once again sticking two fingers up… – Continue reading at London Theatreland…
Toyah guested on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour yesterday. Listen to the, 45-minute, show at BBC iPlayer. (Photos © Toyah Willcox/BBC)
Toyah, Sandra Bernhard, Sister Helen Prejean
Toyah Willcox made her screen debut 40 years ago in Derek Jarman’s iconic punk film Jubilee. It’s now been adapted for the stage set in the social and political backdrop of today. She joins us to talk about disenfranchised youth, and her own life and work, both then and now.
Sister Helen Prejean is known around the world for her work to end the death penalty and has been instrumental in encouraging dialogue around the world and in shaping the Catholic Church’s newly vigorous opposition to all executions. She talks about her optimism that the death penalty will be abolished.
Sandra Bernhard began her career on the comedy circuit in the 1970s. She also starred alongside Robert De Niro in Martin Scorsese’s King Of Comedy and played one of the first openly lesbian characters on American network television in the hit sitcom Roseanne. The performer, comedian and singer is also a pioneer of the one woman show. She joins Jane to talk about her new show Sandemonium at Ronnie Scott’s London.
Toyah is interviewed in today’s print edition of the Metro.
The singer and actress loves walking from Regent’s Park to Kensington’s museums and wants to live by the BFI
Is there an area of London that you love?
The South Bank, because my first experience of London was the National Theatre in 1977. I was 18 when I joined the National, and Ian Charleson, who played Eric Liddell in Chariots Of Fire, introduced me to (film director) Derek Jarman who lived on Butler’s Wharf so lots of my formative years were spent in the area. In the late 1970s it was nothing like what it’s like now, it was derelict, there was no sign of any money going in. The National was ground-breaking for being built there at that time. Today, it’s still my favourite part of London. It’s vibrant, you have the arts on tap, it’s multicultural, it’s interesting and I love the architecture. If I could afford to I would live right next to the British Film Institute.
What are the most memorable London Stages you’ve performed on?
The Olivier (theatre) at the National Theatre is a sacred space to work in and I was one of the first people to perform on ‘the revolve’ (revolving stage) which was built in 1976, in the play Tales From The Vienna Woods. It was the first play to use the revolve, which was in its embryonic stages, and kept breaking down. When it broke it had to be operated manually by hand. The other stage is Wembley Arena, which I’ve done once. It was a dream come true. I love playing arenas and, as a performer, you have to have ticked off Wembley. It was big, it was loud, it was beautiful.
• Continue reading at Twitter. (Thanks to Talent 4 Media)
Queen Elizabeth I is now in residence at the Lyric Hammersmith, London – Jubilee previews began last night. The, already sold out, Press Performance takes place next Tuesday (20th February)…
• Lyric Hammersmith: First preview of Jubilee DONE! – Continue reading…
• Hammersmith London: Catch stage adaptation of Derek Jarman’s film #Jubilee at @LyricHammer until 10 March! https://lyric.co.uk/shows/jubilee . With @toyahofficial @travisalabanza – Continue reading…
• Toyah Willcox Instagram: Jubilee the stage adaptation of the iconic 1978 Derek Jarman film opens tonight Thu 15 Mar at Lyric Hammersmith, London | Whereas Toyah played Mad in the original film, she now takes the role of the time travelling Queen Elizabeth 1st. #Toyah60 – Continue reading… (Image © Official Toyah)
• Broadway World: Long Day’s Journey Into The Night Leads February’s Top 10 New London Shows: 3. Jubilee, Lyric Hammersmith – Derek Jarman’s seminal 1970s punk film – featuring a marauding girl gang, time-travelling Elizabeth I and anarchic culture wars – comes to stage in an intriguing new Chris Goode adaptation. Promising a soundtrack “to die (horribly) for”, it also has a cast led by original film cast member Toyah Willcox – Continue reading…
• Lyric Hammersmith: The Royal Box is occupied. The Queen hath arrived. Toyah is getting acquainted with our theatre during Jubilee tech – Continue reading… (Photo © Lyric Hammersmith)
• Toyah Willcox Twitter: “Lizzie wants you to be her valentine” – Continue reading…
• Playbill: Schedule of Upcoming London Shows: Derek Jarman’s iconic film captured punk at its giddy height: a riot of music, DIY fashion, and every kind of sex – with a little pyromania thrown in. Now, forty years on, this new stage adaptation of Jubilee remixes it for the social and political turmoil of 2017. Centred around a marauding girl gang on a killing spree and a time-travelling Queen Elizabeth I, it’s a story of what happens when creativity and nihilism collide – Continue reading…
• The Official Toyah Willcox Website: Stage Adaptation of Jubilee Opens in London 15 Feb: Derek Jarman’s anarchic punk film Jubilee has been adapted for the stage with a cast including Toyah Willcox – Continue reading…
• Toyah Willcox Twitter: “Hello Queenie my old friend, glad 2 b u again” – Continue reading…
• Jubilee @ the Lyric Hammersmith: 15th February – 10th March 2018 – Book Now
• Toyah Willcox Instagram: “First night” – Continue reading…
• Jubilee Playlist: “Turn it up loud and release that inner punk” – Listen @ Spotify… (account required)
• Jubilee (London) @ Dreamscape: Browse our news, so far, on Jubilee at the Lyric Hammersmith – Continue reading…
• Jubilee (Manchester) @ Dreamscape: Browse our news archive on Jubilee at the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester – Continue reading…
What to see this week in the UK: Five of the best … theatre shows
Jubilee – Chris Goode’s stage version of Derek Jarman’s classic punk-era film stars Toyah Willcox, who played Mad in the original, as Elizabeth I. It is wildly entertaining, billing itself with a knowing leer as “an iconic film most of you have never heard of, adapted by an Oxbridge twat for a dying medium, spoiled by millennials, ruined by diversity, and constantly threatening to go interactive”. Not for the faint-hearted; definitely for the big of heart.
Lyric Hammersmith, W6, Thursday 15 February to 10 March
• Continue reading at The Guardian.
Derek Jarman’s punk-inflected “Jubilee” (1978), adapted by Chris Goode, opens at the Lyric Theater here on Thursday after earning rave reviews at the Royal Exchange in Manchester.
• Continue reading at The New York Times.
Toyah Willcox on the stage version of Derek Jarman’s controversial film “Jubilee” and actress Daniella Isaacs on her show about our obsession with raw food – Listen at BBC iPlayer by clicking below. (Photo © BBC)
• West End Theatre: Toyah Willcox to star in stage adaptation of punk film Jubilee: Legendary punk warrior and actress Toyah Willcox will star in a stage adaption of Derek Jarman’s seminal punk film Jubilee. Forty years after Jarman’s film captured punk at its giddy height, the new stage adaption remixes it for the social and political turmoil of 2017 – Continue reading…
• Creative Tourist: Unmissable things to do in Manchester and the North: Jubilee at the Royal Exchange – It’s 40 years since the heyday of the punk movement. An anarchic expression of contempt for society’s stagnation, it produced some of the most interesting (and angriest) music of the ‘70s, much of which has stood the test of time. Now the Royal Exchange is turning one of the iconic films of the era – Jubilee – into a theatre piece, complete with spikey punk soundtrack – Continue reading…
• The Telegraph: Cast of play rebels over reference to Myra Hindley as a ‘hero’, forcing director to delete lines: Toyah Willcox, who was in the film and is now in the play, said that using the lines in the city where Hindley and Ian Brady operated would have “undermined the whole play” – Continue reading…
• BBC News: Manchester theatre cuts Myra Hindley hero-worship lines: A new play in Manchester has cut lines about Moors Murderer Myra Hindley being “a true artist” and a “hero” for fear of offending the audience. The 1978 punk film Jubilee has been adapted for the Royal Exchange theatre – Continue reading…
• The Guardian: Don’t condemn sound judgment as PC behaviour: A stage production of Derek Jarman’s 1978 film, Jubilee, has had lines removed where a character expresses admiration for Myra Hindley… Toyah Willcox, who was in the film, and now appears in the play, was against retaining the lines and made the point that Jarman would have originally included them for shock value – Continue reading…
The Lyric Hammersmith in London has announced its 2018 season, which will include Chris Goode’s stage adaptation of Jubilee, starring Toyah Willcox.
Sean O’Casey’s The Plough and the Stars will also feature in the upcoming season, in a co-production with the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. Philip Venables’ opera adaptation of 4:48 Psychosis, Sarah Kane’s play, will return to the Lyric as part of the season, produced by the Royal Opera.
Jubilee, based on the 1977 film of the same name, plays at the Lyric in February following its premiere at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester, as previously announced. It will be co-produced by the two theatres, with Chris Goode and Company.The Lyric’s auditorium will be reconfigured to recreate the Royal Exchange’s in-the-round space
• Continue reading at The Stage.
