Dreamscape – Toyah Willcox Fansite

A new interview with Toyah, from ‘Woman’s Own’ magazine.

Actress and singer Toyah, 54, reveals how her life was plagued with insomnia for 40 years before she discovered acupuncture…

You might think staying up all night is part of the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle, but four decades of insomnia left former punk princess Toyah sick and very tired! Last year she finally found a solution with acupuncture – just as well now she’s busy touring with the two-woman stage show Hormonal Housewives. Toyah, who lives with her husband of 26 years, musician Robert Fripp, tells us about her new zest for life…

Have you always had trouble sleeping?
Yes. It started when I was 14, triggered by the pressure of exams. I was doing revision all night and, once you’re in that stress-related pattern, it sticks. Then in my late teens it was ideal, as I was working in music and theatre, where everyone stays awake until the sun comes up!

How bad did it get?
I could go 10 days without sleeping, by which time I’d be delirious and feel very poorly. I’d get nauseous and stop functioning. I’d have an episode as bad as that about once a year. But I won’t take sleeping pills. I tried them in my twenties and found them very negative. Read more…

We’ve teamed up with Target Live to give you the chance to win a pair of tickets for the Hormonal Housewives tour – 5 prizes to be won!

• Enter at Woman’s Own. Competition closes at 23.59 on Tuesday 12 March 2013.

• Woman’s Own: Toyah is interviewed in the first issue of the new Woman’s Own magazine “Get Healthy”: In our first Get Healthy magazine we aim to help you feel your best.  We share with you the stars’ go-to remedies for staying well. Toyah Willcox tells us what made her sleep after 40 years of insomnia.

• Primitive Screwheads: Friday Night Movies 415: Jubilee is a 1978 film by Derek Jarman… With its uninhibited punk petulance and sloganeering, Jubilee, brings together many cultural and musical icons of the time, including Jordan, Toyah Willcox, Little Nell, Wayne County, Adam Ant, and Brian Eno (with his first original film score), to create a genuinely unique, unforgettable vision.

• Retro Brit: Quadrophenia: Great Retro Brit Flick: I can remember the first time I saw the advert at the Bank Underground station in 1979… There was Sting from the band: The Police and Toyah Willcox who were all rock stars of that time.

• NI Scene: Calamity Jane: Ciara Mackey joins the ranks of Barbara Windsor, Toyah Willcox and the iconic Doris Day herself in playing the disaster-prone Calamity Jane.