Toyah Willcox is one of those celebrities that are hard to categorise.

Is she a singer? An actress? A presenter?

She’s certainly done it all and done so much that even she can’t pinpoint where it all began.

“I think I started in acting but I honestly can’t remember,” she says.

“I left school and just went straight into performing, it was something I always wanted to do. I would say I’m an actress and singer but I’ve really always combined the two.

“I view myself as a creative person, I write music and I’m generally very busy. I’d say I’m definitely a workaholic, I’m not interested in anything else.”

Toyah’s career spans over 30 years, but the 51-year-old shows no sign of slowing down. She is currently on tour in Steve Steinman’s Vampires Rock, which comes to the Southport Theatre at the end of the month, and continues to perform with her band The Humans, as well as record her own material.

She says: “I find what I do a pure joy and don’t feel like it’s work. I’m always in a different town or country and it’s never a problem for me. I feel very lucky that I get paid to do what I do.

“I often think it would be nice to be in a soap so that I could know what I’m going to be doing every day, because the only thing that winds me up is being told last minute that I have to be somewhere else in the world the next day.”

Toyah arguably rode to notoriety as a pop singer on the back of the punk revolution. But with many of that generation settling down into middle age cosiness, has she retained any of the anti-establishment values her career was forged upon?

“A big part of that generation was the fact that we didn’t compromise, so in that sense I still have that today,” she says.

“I’m very much my own person and I have zero tolerance for people that don’t pull their own weight and that’s a punk thing. It wasn’t about slackers. I think I’m still that same person but just 30 years on. Every generation brings something new.”

A combination of drawing inspiration from her contemporaries and refusing to rest on her own laurels seems to have been the driving force behind Toyah’s success.

She adds: “I’m very interested in other people and I don’t think I could do what I do if I wasn’t fascinated by others.

“I’ve always enjoyed other people’s success and found it really inspiring. Someone like Madonna is really inspirational because she’s not predictable.

“I’ve had a lot of career highlights but I’m enjoying this year immensely and focussing on the here and now.

“I love my life and love the fact that every day brings a new part of you into the world.”

Formby Times
November 2009