 Toyah made one of her regular
appearances on the Heaven And Earth
Show yesterday morning to review the
week's newspapers. Also featured on the
weekly Sunday morning show was an
interview with Toyah's 80's contemporary
Hazel Oconnor, who is touring at the
moment in 'Beyond Breaking Glass'. Hazel
spoke about her career, how she
feels no bitterness towards the music
industry, her faith, spiritual beliefs
and the Hare Krishna movement.  Heaven &
Earth Show presenter Juliet Morris
introduced Toyah by asking her "You
must have been around at the same time as
Hazel?" Toyah: "Oh yeah, we
were very competitive about 20 years ago
but now I'm hugely supportive of her. I
think she's just wonderful. The music is
so good, it's fantastic, it'd be really
good catching that tour." Juliet:
"It was lovely listening to those
80's hits again." Toyah replied,
"Tell me about it, I was there, I
was singing 'em!"
 Among other topics Toyah
discussed teachers and their plight in
2001, a woman leading the Gurkhas, and
Madonna. "Now I've had many role
models in my life, many have been women,
but two I will remember for the whole of
my life because they turned femininity on
its head, they made femininity
respectable, strong and brilliant. One is
Princess Diana, the other is Madonna. But
why on earth was she pictured holding a
gun in her stage show last week, shooting
male dancers. You could argue that old
chestnut, she's got the male symbol of
oppression and she's shooting the
oppressor. It's not right, music and guns
should not go together because some of
the audience don't know any better. I
just think, Madonna, her career is
perfect, her mind is perfect, she's in a
league of her own and she does not need
to adopt this male stance. It's very,
very weird."
|
Jubilee,
probably the best known 'punk' film ever
made and Toyah's big screen debut, has
been reissued for the 3rd or 4th time on
video, and the first time on DVD. Toyah
plays Mad, a punkette pyromaniac who is
also fond of knives. Originally released
in 1978 and directed by Derek Jarman the
film also stars Ian Charleson, Adam Ant,
Little Nell, Jenny Runacre and Jordan. 
This evening at 8pm is the
opening performance of A Midsummer
Night's Dream at Stafford Castle. The
play runs until 14th July and is part of
the annual Stafford Open Air Shakespeare
Festival. Toyah stars as Titania &
Hippolyta alongside Paul Henry as Bottom,
Paul Fox as Lysander, Chloe Newsome as
Puck & Sarah Vandenbergh as
Hermia. 
On Friday 22 June Toyah returned
to the stage as a singer and proved she
still has the magic that first made her a
star over 20 years ago. She only played
six songs but they were six of her
classics: 'Good Morning Universe',
'Thunder In The Mountains', 'Be Proud Be
Loud 
Be Heard)',
'It's A Mystery', 'I Want To Be Free' and
'Ieya' as the much requested encore.
Toyah was onstage for around 40 minutes
and didn't wear one of her old 80's stage
outfits. Ruby, however, was in full
Thunder get up for the 30th birthday bash
as a nice nod towards the Toyah of the
past we all know and love. Toyah launched
Ruby's charity parachute jump and
interviewed her onstage about
Staffordshire Buddies, the local HIV
charity that will benefit from the jump.
Toyah and Ruby were also interviewed by
local paper The Sentinel, which hopefully
I will add to this page sometime in the
next few days. Everyone I have heard from
who attended really had a fantastic time.
All in all a resounding success, and
surely a clear mesage to Toyah that there
is still much interest in her as a music
performer, and what a birthday treat for
Ruby. Now who mentioned a tour!?!! 
Is Toyah the new Fern Britton?
Here are some screen grabs from 'the
television cookery sensation that is
sweeping the nation' (sort of!). Mystery
celebrities, chefs, and Toyah cook up a
storm! Each week a different chef (on
this show it was Lesley Waters) will join
Toyah to prepare a recipe from an unknown
celebrity (Mark Curry here) source. As
they cook the dish, the chef will attempt
to guess whose recipe they are preparing
using the ingredients, style and theme of
the dish as their only hints. 
Paul Richards
suggestion, via the Angels & Demons
club at Yahoo, has received a very
favourable response in the last few days.
Paul wondered if there would be any
chance of Toyah playing a gig for all the
loyal fans, and asked how we could go
about organising a suitable venue,
location and date, what costs would be
involved, and most important how and who
will persuade Toyah to agree to perform.
So maybe Paul's idea could eventually
lead to a fantastic gig, here's hoping.
There have already been lots of
suggestions and ideas put forward,
including the Royal Albert Hall as a
venue and London or Birmingham as a
location. If, as I'm sure we all hope,
this idea is to become a reality we all
need to get as many people interested as
possible, and make sure they will
definitely go. And if Toyah is to commit
to one or more concerts it all really
must be organised and administered
properly. 
Here it is! The flyer
from The Club, announcing not only that it is
Ruby's 30th Birthday but also the news that Toyah
is set to make her first live musical outing of
this millenium: 
Another feature on Toyah
and Whose Recipe? 
The Australian Animal
Lib Organisation are holding an All Star Charity
Auction to raise funds so that they can continue
to fight the terrible cruelty and abuse some
idiots inflict on animals. Included in the
auction is a Toyah Tour Scarf from the 80's. This
is from their press release:
We always need extra
funds and we are just so incredibly happy that so
many celebrities worldwide have come out to help
us by donating some wonderful autographed items. 
Toyah was featured in
yesterday's Personal magazine in the Sunday
Mirror. In a short article about Whose Recipe
Is It Anyway? entitled 'Taste The Mystery'. 
It seems that in 2001 Toyah is
finally receiving some recognition and
appreciation, from some of the music
industry's top pop acts. Last week Ian
Watkins, otherwise known as 'H' from the
pop band Steps revealed that Toyah is one
of his favourite artists. 
Mel had started
reading a copy of Toyah's autobiography
'Living Out Loud' and was enjoying it so
much she decided to tell the other plane
passengers. 
