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TOYAH IN RITZ NEWSPAPER MAGAZINE MAY 1985

By Antonia Willis Toyah's video for her new single "Don'T Fall In Love (I Said)" shows a raunchy, aggressive side on a woman who enjoys and encourages a reputation for walking a bit on the wild side. She also likes to project an image of quiet domesticity and is happy to talk about evenings at home doing sewing whilst her boyfriend of five years standing watches TV. This is a false image - as indeed is the other. She is, above all, a dedicated woman. I suspect there is little life for Toyah outside her work. Her appearance is as much as publicity requirement as a personal expression, and despite the mane of red hair and the purple eye-shadow the first adjective that springs to mind is not outrageous or striking, but simply pretty. She is self-effacing, and eager to be taken seriously. The old days of Toyah as a hell-raiser and well and truly over. I expect that she was probably much more fun to know then but a certain amount of "fun" has to be sacrificed in the pursuit of success.

I asked her is she felt she had become more professional in the part year ... TOYAH: Yes, definitely. Until recently I was aiming for a kind of superficial fame than for a standard of work. Then I sat down and thought about what I wanted out of life. I wanted to be remembered as a singer and as an actress. I wanted privacy. I wanted health - I've given up meat and alcohol - and I wanted lasting success. What attracted you most: fame or money? TOYAH: Oh, fame. No doubt about that. When the band first made it we didn't know what had hit us. We didn't even collect our cheques. We were so poor that we walked to the BBC, for Top Of The Pops ... I've got myself organised now. I've got plenty of money, but not much time to spend it. When you do have time to relax and enjoy your millions, how would you like to live? TOYAH: I'd like a great big country mansion with helicopter pad and a swimming pool and every room decorated as a different style. There would be an Art Deco room, a Georgian Room, an Elizabethan room ... I rewind slightly before this nightmare vision. What period would you actually like to live in? TOYAH: Oh, 2400 AD. By then we'll have sorted all our problems out. I think we'll all live away from cities. There won't be any wars, technology will be so advanced as to hidden and there will be no prejudice. What makes you think this will happen? TOYAH: For a start, people will travel more and more, and get to know what each other are like. They won't care so much about their own political systems.

Do you have any political instincts to change the world? TOYAH: No, I'm very politically naive. I read all the papers - from the Guardian to the Mail - but I just can't make up my mind. I think you change people by giving them a sense of pleasure; by entertaining them. You are obviously irrepressibly optimistic. Why? TOYAH: Partly because I'm not worried about what happens to us all when we die. You see, I know that there is some kind of parallel world that we just drift into. I realised this when I once heard my Dad say that he was frightened of dying and I just couldn't see why. Are you still close to your family? TOYAH: Yes. They always laugh about things. When I first dyed my hair, my Mum got a bit uptight and clocked me - I had dyed it white at the back and she thought it had all been shaved off. But when I let it grow back to its normal colour last year, she told me to dye it back. "You'll never sell your records looking like that" - she said. Did you have a wild time in Birmingham? TOYAH: Oh, indeed I did. I was in punch-ups all the time. It's much more normal up there. I got a big shock once, though, when I was twenty. I went out drinking with my first boyfriend, and there was this fight in the pub. I lashed out all over the place, and then went home and passed out. The next day I went round to see my boyfriend; his nose was broken and there was blood all over the sheets. "Oh My God!" I said. "Who did that to you?" "You did", he answered. So I've been a bit careful ever since. I've learnt to keep my mouth shut, for a start.

Is that a quality your find yourself in need of? TOYAH: It is. People bother me all the time. For instance, after I came back from France after filming "The Ebony Tower", the press kept wanting to get me to tell them bits of unpleasant gossip about Laurence Olivier (above with Toyah, Greta Scacchi and Roger Rees) But here simply isn't any, you know - he is truly one of the most kind and remarkable people I've met. Did you become very close to him while you were living together on the set? TOYAH: I saw him a lot, because I used to stay behind at the chateau while Greta and everybody else went off to the town; it was incredibly provencial, and my red hair attracted a certain amount of hostile attention. So I couldn't go out much, and Laurence Olivier used to stay behind to keep me company. He was like that; truly considerate. Did you feel at tall tempted to identify with the part of "Freak" in "The Ebony Tower"? TOYAH: No, not at all. It was just apart. The chateau had an incredibly seductive atmosphere, though. I almost cried when I left. What's your next big project? TOYAH: I'm going to tour again. I want to get back to the music world; it's important for me to juggle the two careers. I'm going to tour America, where I've never been. We're going to do both coasts, but I'm not sure about middle America. I wonder how you'd go down there. Last time I was in Texas the best selling song was "Drop-kick Me Jesus Through The Goalposts Of Life" TOYAH: Yes, that sort of thing's really pagan. I'm looking forward to the west coast, though. Won't you find it exhausting?

TOYAH: I expect I will. I always lose the upper range of my voice during the last few days of a tour, and that really scares me. It's like asking a guitarist to go on stage with only two strings.

How do you like to relax when it's all over? TOYAH: I paint, or just sit in the garden thinking. And sometimes - not often - I like a good night out on the town. The other day I went to the White Elephant Club, then on to Tramp, and I loved it.

There were a lot of press people, though, and that makes me a bit nervous. The media operates under its own rules, and they are very tough.

Did you ever feel you've been misrepresented?

TOYAH: There are times when I can't even recognise myself in the things that have been written ... but I don't particularly mind. Life's so busy and if you need publicity, you take the knocks. I enjoy myself. We all have a certain amount to put up with and I have a lot less of that than most.

I could believe it; there was something quite disarming about her which probably stemmed from the fact that she was so obviously enjoying life.

"We all thrive on pleasure", she said. "But you have to work at knowing what gives you the greatest enjoyment. It's not drugs, or sex, or parties for me. It's my acting and singing and when I'm too old to do either of those, I'll paint. It's a good life." 

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CELEBRITY BRIDES UNVEILED 2009

TOYAH: When I was a little girl I never dreamt about my wedding. I was a tomboy. All I ever wanted for Christmas and for my birthdays was punch balls, guns, tanks. So weddings just weren't on my agenda at all   In fact, I probably as I got older and got into my teens and became a punk rocker - and then got into my 20s - was quite phobic about thoughts of marriage and quite phobic about the thought of having a permanent partner and having a family. So when I did eventually get married, I shocked everybody I knew I grew up in Birmingham, which was quite a difficult place for a girl to grow up 35 years ago. Women were forced into relationships and I felt forced into being sexually active. An awful lot of the girls that I knew their ideal was to have a child out of wedlock and get the security of a nice apartment and never get married and get a job. I hate to generalise about it, but that is the environment I grew up in Because I grew up in that environment I was ferociously against relationships. So I got involved in punk and then in music around the age of 14. I knew that I was always going to be very different  

I started making my own clothes and started to look very punky. I was very pre-punk. I was influenced by a film called The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which was pre-punk. So I was walking around Birmingham with peacock coloured hair about two years before punk rock ever appeared 

My husband and I should have met at least five to six years before we actually did because we had the same management company. The very first time I met him was 1983, where we shared a taxi to an award ceremony together. He sat on the front seat and I was on the backseat with my manager - our manager. He was very quiet and he had these little round glasses   I just took the mickey out of him from the Kings Road to the Grosvenor Hotel, which was about half an hour trip. I can remember my manager just being flabbergasted that I had the guts to just provoke this man for half an hour and I'd only just met him I didn't know that he is in the Top 10 of the world's most famous guitar players. He's a man called Robert Fripp and 1983 he was just like God in the music world. He worked with David Bowie he produced Peter Gabriel. He'd been on Blondie’s his albums - so he was a megastar. The picture behind me (above) is of me and Princess Michael of Kent, laughing at someone joking. And that someone is Robert Fripp, my husband    This is the first moment I really got to talk to him because Princess Michael wanted a photograph taken with him and me. That picture appeared in a very famous newspaper the next day with Robert cut out of it, because Robert was never really a celebrity, but I was and that was 1983 - three years before I married Robert So we didn't meet again until two years later, when we met at exactly the same award ceremony. He said to me would I visit him at his home in Dorset and make an album with him, a charity album for children's school in America and I said yes    But what I didn't know, and this is very much how my husband works - when we met again in 1985, which would have been around June - July he'd already said to his friends in America, where he lived in New York, he said "I'm wiping the diary clean for the next three weeks, because I'm going to meet my wife". So we'd already had a kind of intuition about this   

Then the following week after we met and had this discussion, I went down to work with him on this album for a week. He said “will you marry me?“ and “I said it was a bit quick, isn’t it?” He said "no, I know you're my wife. I've been planning this for the last month." And I kind of went "OK, well let's get to know each other"     So I actually moved to Washington for three months to the school where we were raising the money for, where he taught, because he also teaches guitar. I went there and taught drama for three months and that was our courtship (Shows the bouquet) I still have my wedding bouquet, which is hard to believe. This dear thing is 22 years old. We keep it in our front room. It was yellow, originally. I adore yellow flowers. So we had yellow roses, yellow Carnations and then Lily of the Valley     This is probably the most expensive thing about the wedding - the Lily of the Valley on May the 16th - we're already out of season. So we had to have them brought in from Holland and it wasn't cheap. But I did a little drawing of what I wanted and a friend went along to a florist and got it organised. And miraculously, we have managed to keep it I organised the wedding. My husband didn't want anything to do with any of those traditions other than the church ceremony. So he participated in the rehearsal. We married in St. Mary & Cuthberga & All Saints Church in Witchampton in Dorset where his father was buried, and I think his grandparents were buried     We did the rehearsal but that was about as far as it went. I bought the wedding rings, I bought the wedding dress. I cooked all the food for the wedding party. He didn't want children at the wedding. He didn't want any of my friends at the wedding but I insisted on close family Basically I realised that it was nerves. He can't bear big events. I have never had a party since I've been married because he can't bear those kinds of events, which is unusual but bearable. So he didn't want music at the wedding. It was a silent wedding         The extraordinary thing was it was on May the 16th 1986 and it’d rained for a month but the moment we arrived at the church, the sun came out and streamed through the windows exactly where we stood at the altar

(Shows the hat) I had the veil made. My sister-in-law had to organise it so no one knew I was having a wedding veil made. That went over the front, it's very brittle and delicate. You've got to remember it's 22 years old, and this big flower went at the back. Now these are back in again today. Back then this was 1986, big things were in. But seriously that went out in the 90s big time. I suppose you would see that in Sex And The City today We managed to have the reception with very close family. And then the precious day ended and that evening and the next day we were hounded. We were chased everywhere by journalists in cars. Eventually we drove off to a Franciscan retreat in Sand Creek in Cornwall, who hid us and we hid that for a week and they blessed our wedding (Shows the garter) This is the garter I wore for something blue and I wore it on my left leg I think, I could be wrong. But there's only two legs to choose from. It was a gift from my husband's best friend. They had it made by a local lacemaker in Dorchester. My husband now keeps this on his desk in his office.      (Shows the dress) Because Robert and I were getting married secretly I couldn't order a wedding gown. Because I was paying for everything and basically was not interested in a huge expensive public wedding I had to really ponder of how I was going to be a bride I thought OK, I'll just go buy a ball gown and it was really hard for me to shop at this time because I was incredibly well known. I couldn't go anywhere on my own. So I knew of a kind of debutante ball shop in a town called Windborne in Dorset. I went there pretending I was going to a ball and I bought the only ball gown that would fit me       That was a little pink organza Bo Peep dress, a family dress. I didn't want a traditional white wedding dress which was lucky. This is actually a little ball gown, very Bo Peep, off the shoulder puffball sleeves that just rested on the upper arm. Little kind of gatherings at the bottom. So it's very feminine, very pretty indeed I think marriage is cyclical. I think everything in life is cyclical. You go through cycles. And if you can recognise those cycles, you can recognise when a cycle is dipping, and you're in a bad time and also when a cycle is lifting and you're in a good time. I think you only grow to recognise these things if you have longevity in a relationship      

So seven years ago, we found the home we're in now (Toyah and Robert in 2020, above), which is just the most perfect beautiful home in the world in the Midlands. We decided that we wanted to spend more time together and travel a little bit less and just enjoy ourselves. We've worked really hard, not only as a couple, but as individuals as well. You've got to bear in mind we don't have children either so we're not fixed and one of us isn't financially dependent on the other But we go off, we have little honeymoons three or four times a year and just lock the world out and we're just romantic. The one thing that both of us are - we are both very romantic. I love buying him gifts and I love telling him to pack a bag and (say to him) you’re going be in a warm climate. You'll be in a cold climate. Oh, don't worry, you're not going to leave the bedroom for a week. I've kind of I like surprising him and taking him on nice adventures You can watch the programme  HERE

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THE LATE EDITION, E4 WITH MARCUS BRIGSTOCKE 24.3.2005

MARCUS: The fabulously taut Toyah Willcox! TOYAH: Fabulously taut, eh? MARCUS: The fabulousty taut Toyah Willcox and I don't mean your education (Toyah laughs) You look fantastic! TOYAH: Thank you very much. I should hope after that amount of money MARCUS: How much did it cost? TOYAH: 11,000 Euros. So at the point of exchange, it was about £7500 MARCUS: Money well spent! TOYAH: I think so MARCUS: Yeah. And you've written a book which is moving and scary and at points a sickening account. It's very graphic about exactly what you went through

TOYAH: I hope to put people off as much as tell people what goes on. There's some women you will never stop having it done like me, but I hope that the book actually puts the weaklings off. It takes a bit of kind of mettle to go through with it MARCUS: There are some who would say it takes more mettle not to change how you look TOYAH: Bollocks! (the audience laughs) MARCUS: Fair enough. Why bollocks? TOYAH: Because I think sometimes women – and I’m talking from a woman's point of view - and I know men to this ... look at Dale Winton, obviously MARCUS: Not for too long (the audience laughs) Those lights bouncing off that brighter colour, you can actually damage the retina     

TOYAH: Sometimes you do it for yourself. It is a selfish act sometimes and I did it because I wanted to do something. Having a facelift doesn't stop you ageing, you're going to carry on ageing. Nothing will stop that but hopefully I will do it a little more attractively MARCUS: Right TOYAH: Am I boring you shitless? (Toyah and the audience laugh) MARCUS: No, not at all! In all honesty I'm trying to be delicate or I had intended to be delicate but you're talking in a far more - TOYAH: Don’t be delicate because you're a sweetheart! MARCUS: OK, can I feel behind your ear? TOYAH: (moves towards Marcus) If I can sit on your knee MARCUS: Oh my good God! (feels behind Toyah’s ear) There’s almost nothing there! TOYAH: See! It’s good work! MARCUS: I'm not going to grab it and pull TOYAH: Oh, by the way, I've had my arse done. Could you feel that? MARCUS: Yes, I could (the audience laughs) And I want to say for the record, I'm not bored now! (Toyah and the audience laugh) And if Thatcher was here he (sic) could measure things. There have been some real horror pictures, haven't there? Let's have a look at that (a photo of Jocelyn Wildenstein) TOYAH: I have to tell you about Jocelyn Wildenstein. She's one of the richest women in America and this is body dysmorphic disorder. This is when you don't see the truth of who are MARCUS: Yeah, you see, that's the thing. I think if you look at lots of the elements of her mashed face, they look OK individually. It's just when you put it all together you just think oh, my God! TOYAH: It's like Burt Reynolds and Julian Clary married together. I mean, it really is quite bizarre! MARCUS: It is a hideous mess. Let’s have a look at the next one. Joan Rivers TOYAH: Sorry, when I'm 73 I want to look like that woman 

MARCUS: Yeah, that's taken a lot of surgery, hasn't it? TOYAH: Yeah, there's about three facelifts there. That's my guess MARCUS: Looks like she's got a beard coming up eventually (the audience laughs) It’s an oldie but a goodie. There are women, I think, who were very critical. I mean, Melanie Phillips who writes in The Daily Mail absolutely tore a strip off Anne Robinson when she had her face done TOYAH: And do you think Anne cares? MARCUS: I know that she does. It didn't hurt her but she was angry and she wanted to get back at Melanie TOYAH: I think if anyone gets back at anyone it’s going to be Anne because she's rich and she's powerful. But I do think a time comes when you do stand up and go "see, Melanie's kind of had a go at me, that's fantastic! I’ve arrived!" MARCUS:  Has Melanie Phillips got a point at some level that unless women are allowed to grow old on screen - because you're someone who's who's very much in the public eye ... If women aren't seen to be growing older it will be impossible for them ever to grow older TOYAH: OK, I totally agree women must be allowed to grow old on screen and it's been an actress's dilemma for since the TV's been going but from the age of 35 to about 50 women weren't finding jobs. Caroline Quentin has broken that mould and parts are being written for her    But the biggest problem that I predict is that it's going to become about those who have the money to have the really good work and those who don't have the money to have any work at all. And it's going to be like them and and us so a huge social divide MARCUS: I think it is enormously difficult to have a career particularly in presenting if you're a woman of advancing years. I make absolutely no judgement. I've thought about surgery myself. I've got quite a long, narrow face, and I'd quite like it shortened and made more round (Toyah laughs)   Whether I shall ever actually have that done I don't know. It would mean removing bone from here to here. Quite dramatic! But nonetheless, I think your surgery has made you look sensational. And I'd like to thank you very much indeed for joining me this evening. Toyah Willcox! TOYAH: Thank you! You can listen to the interview  HERE

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THE DYSPRAXIC HELP 4U PODCAST WITH BILLY STANLEY 10.10.2021

BILL: Welcome to the podcast, Toyah. How are you? TOYAH: I'm really good. Thank you very much. It's nice to have some normality back in life BILL: I must start by asking when did you learn that you were dyspraxic? TOYAH: Very early. I had a very remarkable teacher when I was in infant school and it was about my second year and she realised I was very, very bright and very creative. My very first year at school when I was four and a half, we were allowed to work with colour and crayons. So when we were taught mathematics, we had different coloured bricks, which represented numbers     I (was) top of the class at that. Then with using crayons - top of the class with that. And then when we moved to the following year when I was five people very quickly realised I could not pick up the normal standard training reading and the normal standard training of numbers. They were just gobbledygook to me

So I was put on phonetic writing - the “Janet and John” books I was given in phonetics and then I could immediately read. But once I was six, none of that was available to me. It was completely taken away and treated as if I was lazy, treated as if I wasn't making an effort. I think part of the problem was is the school didn't like me having special treatment. They didn't want me being singled out to be someone special. I went from being top of the class to the next 10 years being bottom of the class until I left BILLY: Did you have the support of your immediate family and friends? TOYAH: They didn't even support me when I was an international megastar! BILLY: Did you struggle to conform to social norms and the trials and tribulations of being neurodivergent and did having a personality suppressed throughout your mainstream education somehow mould you into the person you are today?

TOYAH: I think I felt very alone. But teenagers generally feel alone. School for me was tedious and it was boring. I should have been at a drama school where I would have excelled or a music school where I would have excelled. I just did not fit into the conservatism of my education. So I would say in answer to your question that I became quite insular and incredibly independent because of it because there was no one I could rely on There was no one I could go to and say, “why can't I do this? Why don't people listen? Why don't people see me as me?” So everything I did I was told I was wrong and I was told I was being the wrong person. So no one saw me in my true natural state and my true nature. So I think it actually made me who and what I became as a star BILLY: Dyspraxics often say that they play the fool as a means of masking our differences. Do you consider yourself to have been always the master your true persona?

TOYAH: I tell you one thing that I did do was I covered up brilliantly in social situations, where I knew what was coming because of culturally where I came from. I had a bad speech impediment and at that time I had a limp because I was born with a twisted spine and pelvic dysplasia, which is all been corrected. I knew that people were going to make a joke out of me. So I knew how to cover this up. I knew how to bluff my way. When I went to my first job interview, I just lied and I'm a great actress. So I just lied and I got the job Interestingly, the director Derek Jarman, who I did two movies with, who used to come and see me sing - he said to me “Toyah, you’re still acting”, and he understood that I had to create these layers. I think the most frustrating thing that I found - it wasn't really until I met my husband at the age of 25-26 where he was so crystal clear about my cognitive issues. Up until that point, I just went with being highly individualistic and deliberately not fitting in. But I thought that was part of my personality rather than my inner internal neural pathway wiring BILLY: Given that dyspraxia is a lifelong disability, has it impacted you more throughout adulthood? 

TOYAH: My my dyspraxia has got worse as I've got older. When I was younger, say from when I was born until I was about nine I had no idea I had disability. No idea. I led a perfectly normal life. I was being trained to be a junior ice skater alongside John Curry, the Olympian. I had a very normal life and then once my corrective surgeries started, I realised that this was a disability that was going to be with me on a certain level all of my life People made me aware of the limp, which I was never aware of and people made me aware of my speech impediment, which I was never aware of. I just thought I was being treated like the village idiot all the time, which is what culturally happened 55 years ago.    So my dyspraxia has definitely got worse as I've got older but in lockdown I found the most incredible teacher who has a military background and he studied my movement. And by studying my movement, he was able to reverse my dyspraxia so I can now play keyboards and I can now play guitar. I've written 30 odd albums and I've never been able to play one instrument There are ways of connecting those neural pathways and he did it through physical exercise. In 2000 I did the “Dore Programme” which is highly controversial. The government have tried to sweep it under the carpet. I did this for three months and went away and wrote two books. That's all about connecting and firing the neural pathways in the front cerebellum through movement. Through spinning, through disorientation and balance 

BILLY: Without the intervention of a family friend do you believe you would have gone on to achieve the career you've had? And as such did the lack of awareness and support for your respective disabilities in adolescence hold you back in some regards later in life? 

TOYAH: It's a very good question. I think if people saw and accepted and realised what was going on with the relationship between my brain development and my body growing rather than giving up on me I would have had a far more advanced artistic career. No doubt about it. But I was written off very early as purely baby making material. I never had children and I think instinctively I knew I was carrying a gene that had this disability So it's such a good question, because when I was about 14, and this is just a story of complete luck, a man that ran BBC Pebble Mill had a boat next to my parent's boat down on the River Avon. He said to my parents "you know your daughter is incredibly talented. You've got to get her out of the school system and put her in drama school" and he nominated me into the Birmingham Old Rep Theatre School. I never looked back. I just excelled! I was put in the right environment. So up until the age of 14 I was never in the right environment   BILLY: You had an early interest in dancing. Did you encounter any difficulties such as a lack of spacial awareness?

TOYAH: I took up dance when probably about 14. I earned my own money, I paid for my own dance classes. And again, anything to do with movement will trigger the neurons. What I didn't know back then was dehydration and the neurons not quite firing goes hand in hand. I was never given water at school. I drank one glass of water a day. Now I drink five litres of water a day. The brain cannot function in a state of dehydration, neither can your heart So I never knew this at school. We never had water in the classroom. We never had water available to us until lunchtime, and then again when we got home. So all of that is a perfect storm. When I was dancing and even still today, I think it's why I'm never still when I move my neurons - I can feel the fireing. I can feel my brain activate. You want to feel good, just move. We’re water, fat and electricity. So connect with all of that BILLY: Dyspraxics often struggle to learn new information at a rapid pace and have weak short term memory. We do however seem to have fantastic long term memories. Has this been the case for you?

TOYAH: It's a great question because I can give you two examples. I did a play in London called “Trafford Tanzi” about a female wrestler. I‘d pick the fight sequences up on first show. The fighting instructor, a judo Olympian showed me the fight sequences for this two and a half hour play. He never had to show me them again. They were there. When you give me a script, and I have a reading technique where I'm very, very slow but it’s there But give me a dance routine in a West End musical (Toyah in "Cabaret" in 1987, below) it takes me months because I need to connect the counting to the music score and I feel music as as a kind of heartbeat. Musicians feel music has 1234 1234. I don't feel music that way. And dancer’s choreography - they build dances through counting. It's hopeless for me. Hopeless. So I excel at some things and other things I have to find my own way in and that can take time

BILLY: Did you encounter any difficulties such as the lack of spacial awareness, poor balance and where you're also impeded by needing to wear a raised shoe? TOYAH: The thing is most of the time I wore a raised shoe on my right leg. My right leg has now been made the same length. 10 years ago I had surgery to make my right leg the same length. So when I wasn't wearing the raised shoe, my balance was affected and also my gait. Limp is called a gait and I had an emphasised gait. But again, I'm incredibly muscular so I can cover these things up But I think my movement is very individualistic. And it's not what I'd call feminine movement. It's strong movement. I move like a gymnast. I'm very, very strong and very supple, and that’s partly because my tendons are just too long for my joints. So I overextend but my movement is quite unique BILLY: You've had numerous operations in the past to help with your physical disabilities, unbeknownst to your fans and peers. Would you say it was a conscious decision and what impact does all this have on your dyspraxia? 

TOYAH: No, I wouldn't because I managed to disguise it. So up until about the age of 30 my life was pretty normal. I'd had joints removed in my toes to stop them growing and I'd had corrective surgery on my right foot when I was 11. But after that I had a relatively normal life other than I could never wear lovely shoes and still can't because I have a club foot. When I was 30 my right hip socket wasn't formed. It was a shallow socket and it developed a very bad abscess when I was 40 that hollowed out the thigh. There was a huge hole there For 21 years I had to live with that and that was done through pain control. So when I say pain control, that's physiotherapy, it's not drugs. I was allowed to carry Co-Codamol (painkiller) if I needed it, but I managed not to use it. They didn't want to do the surgery on me until the prosthetics were fully developed   So when I was 51, a very wonderful incredible surgeon called Richard Villar designed a prosthetic for me. It's very, very tiny. He took the hip joint out and put in the metal plate into my hip, pelvis, and then this tiny prosthetic goes in to the hole that the cysts formed. I couldn't walk for three months. I was off my my legs for three months while bone grew around that. And I've had a normal life since

So from the age of 30 until I was 50 I was under pain control management. That was all done through extreme muscle. I tell everyone this, if you've got joint problem problems you've got to be built like Arnold Schwarzenegger, because this muscle helps that tendon function through a dysfunctional joint. Then you can support that joint and you could probably live with it for your whole lifetime. By the time Richard Villar did my right hip he said the whole area had completely disintegrated. He had no idea how I coped and I said “I've just had to do this all my life. I know how to mask” So I found - once I had my hip replacement at 51, I'm now 63 - my dyspraxia became worse because my brain had to adjust to a different leg length so I became clumsier. And I'm now dealing with that. It has actually taken about eight years to deal with it BILLY: Is there anything in particular that you've struggled with when it comes to masking? 

TOYAH: You see it in the hands. It's a classic sign that when I'm acting and when I'm expressing my hands kind of freeze. So now I've trained my hands so you will often see me - I will not spread my fingers. I've taught myself not to do that. So my hands are always closed fingers now BILLY: I strongly believe that through dedication and perseverance one can overcome adversity to achieve success. Was there ever a time when you felt like giving up? TOYAH: I'm not someone who gives up because in my upbringing, even though my family felt they loved me, it was so unnutritious on my soul, my body and my heart. I was brought up to be a failure, everyone reflected back at me failure. So because of that I'm the toughest fighter you will ever meet. I just don't give up, I will fight to the death whatever the subject matter is. And that's partly my upbringing, because I was always told I was going to fail So when I reached 30, I had to disguise the pain. That was the biggest thing, disguising the pain, so no one knew and I think there must have been times when people wondered why I was tense rather than relaxed. It's as simple as that. I was always masking pain. There are certain things and I can only explain this through a performance. I was playing “Puck” in “Midsummer Night's Dream” about 1994 (above). So I would have been about 36 and I masked the pain by working on skateboards, roller skates and a penny-farthing so I didn't have to run 

So I could get my sweeping movements on stage by using the skateboard as a body board. So I would run in the wings, jump onto the skateboard onto my body and curve around on the stage and then stand and deliver my lines. That was a way of masking pain because I knew the pain built I could do shows but by the end of the show the pain would be building to intolerable. When I did “Calamity Jane” in the West End, which was incredibly physical - the irony of that was because it was so physical I didn't experience any pain in the whole year because I was so physically tuned up and that helped. Except on one night and an actor dropped me and it did my back in. But that’s the only time I've ever had an injury So it's been a very interesting journey and I would say to people you just don't give up. You just have to keep learning any kind of mild physical disability, which is how I say I am. Just keep working with it. You don't give up because everyone around you is is telling you to give up. You just don't BILLY: There is a common misconception in society that dyspraxia affects intellectual ability. We generally struggle to absorb information that has no bearing on our intelligence overall 

TOYAH: I'm a complete sponge. I'm ahead of everyone in the room, which I think is what confuses people so much. I'm very, very small. I have a slight lisp. I have a slight gait. My malatropisms are frequent in every sentence I say, but I'm ahead of everyone. So I think it's this super intelligence. It has absolutely nothing to do with the condition in your body. You're still intelligent. I read every newspaper every morning within an hour and maintain that information. But there are certain areas that I can't maintain information on I would never make a politician because it just makes no sense to me what politicians do. If you're not helping someone earn a living, have food on the table and be healthy you're not doing your job and as far as I can see everything politicians do is illogical and just help CEOs get big fees in big companies     So when I see something illogical and there's so much in the world that isn't logical I can't work that out. It will never make sense to me. But on other levels I have super intelligence and I don't mind patting myself on the back with that. I'm ahead of everyone in the room 

BILLY: How are you when it comes to reading between the lines both in your personal and professional life? TOYAH: I have to study myself all the time in mirrors. Going up for a part I have to change the way I move. I have to deal with the hands. I'm incredible at reading people. You get people that do face recognition for the police. I can read someone literally in five seconds because I’ve studied myself so much. So I'm a very good reader of personality traits BILLY: After many years as an actor and a musician touring, can you withstand the constant changes of the lineups and surroundings? Are longtime colleagues supportive of your neurodiversity and the way that you work? TOYAH: It's a good question because in the following week I'm working with three different groups. I've always kind of ended up with different bands. The Toyah band, what's fabulous about the band is we've been together for 18 years. They know how I need to learn something and they know when I can't learn something. They know the route in and we have kind of eye signals and hand signals on stage when I've lost the count. I anchor by the downbeat. Now, most musicians don't need a downbeat, they can work around that downbeat (makes a tsk tsk tsk noise) I need the boom, boom, boom, that's how I recognise music

So the Toyah band make that very easy for me. As a solo artist - it's important to me to be a solo artist because it's important to me to establish who and what I feel I am rather than what other people feel who and what I am. I'm not a person that lives by others opinions. And I think that makes some people … I'm difficult to be with for some people because I won't let people tread on me. It's all my upbringing, it's all survival. It's all how dare you tell me that my precious time isn't how I perceive it BILLY: Is it fair to say you're still fighting an uphill battle with acceptance and credibility as a neurodivergent woman in the entertainment industry? TOYAH: I’m fighting the war and I'm a woman and you've got that as well - being a woman in the music industry. There's quite a war going on all the time BILLY: I discovered via your blog on toyahwillcox.com that you are also dyslexic. As a fellow dyslexic myself, I am in awe of the fact that you've penned two books and have co-written nearly 30 albums throughout your impressive career to date. Have you ever felt like you've been at a disadvantage in comparison to your peers? 

TOYAH: There are some authors I will never be able to read because they have a way of thinking that I believe is brought to them through their education and it's quite an elite education. There are some authors like Stephen King - I can pick a book up and read it in two hours. But there's other authors I have to go through with a dictionary. I have to go through each paragraph three times There is an elitism in writing and because I read the newspapers - the simpler writing techniques like The Sun and The Mail - I can read those in five minutes. If I'm going to go to The Independent and The Guardian and The Observer I'm like oh, I don't understand that. So what do they mean? Why have they said that? Three sentences later, they're saying that … I just have to go over and over and over it BILLY: Do you find putting pen to paper easy and does it play a big part in your day to day life?

TOYAH: Both books are a stream of consciousness. I don't know about you, but I think about my life like a diary. So say that's a diary (rustles some paper) Every single note of every single day is in that order in my brain right through virtually to my first memories. I could tell you what I was doing a year ago and what I was wearing, and that really freaks people out So when I'm in a situation and I was in the situation two days ago rehearsing the tour band for “Posh Pop”, which is the new album. They wanted to change an arrangement. So that in my head is like taking the ABC and just throwing it at the wall. It's literally like that. I can't hold it down. I can't sequence and I'm saying sorry, I'm having a brainstorm here  I'm going to have to stop everything, write it down in its order, learn it, see it, photograph it in my brain to get the line still. So sometimes when I look at print, the print becomes a black block. Impenetrable. You're just looking at a blank block or it's like confetti firing off and I can't control the images 

So reading books … I know a good writer Alice Sebold, “Lovely Bones”. That is an intellectual book. I read it in two hours, because she wrote it as a stream of consciousness. So with both of my books “Living Out Loud” and “Diary Of A Facelift” - they’re streams of consciousness. But because my consciousness is so ordered, when I write something it has that order in it BILLY: Your incredible acting career has seen you star in a cult classic film “Quadrophenia” and opposite Laurence Olivier in “The Ebony Tower”. You've also tread the boards in big West End shows and have appeared in TV shows, both as an actor and presenter. What impression did the people you've worked with leave on you? TOYAH: I’d say in “Quadrophenia” we were soul brothers and sisters, we're all the same. There was one standout, absolutely brilliant intellectual and that was Sting. He could do anything with such eloquence and brilliance, but the rest of us we were of similar mental ability and function Laurence Olivier was exceptional and I think part of this exceptionality was his generation. Seen two wars, have had to survive, gone without food, not knowing waking up every day and I think not knowing made exceptional human beings. I'm not saying it's good but Katharine Hepburn, Lord Olivier, Sir John Mills, Diana Dors, exceptional human beings. They shone

BILLY: What did it feel like working with Laurence Olivier? TOYAH: I came out of “Trafford Tanzi”, which was a massive critical success so I was pretty confident when I worked with Laurence Olivier (below, with Toyah in "The Ebony Tower") What I was aware of that he was in the latter part of his life and he wasn't well, but I absorbed him like a sponge because he had done so much and he had fought so much for what he believed in. The National Theatre was not an easy thing for him to do and then to be put into a Hollywood system when really he was passionately in love with the stage was not an easy journey for him The Hollywood system messed up his wife, Vivian Lee, and I witnessed this with Katharine Hepburn that the Hollywood system of the golden era of Hollywood was a cruel system. So I was looking at another survivor and recognised that and just was absolutely in awe of all of them. Huge respect  

BILLY: You've got the same fight and spirit that those stars of yesteryear had. Does it hold you in good stead? TOYAH: I've got my limitations. My physicality gives me limitations as an actress. I was looking at people who were seen as chameleon who could be anything. So I didn't actually hold myself in the same regard as them. But I am still a fighter BILLY: In 1984, you had the honour of being invited to make a speech at the Women of the Year in the presence of Diana, Princess of Wales (above with Toyah) Your speech expressed views on how being disabled incites creativity. What was the driving force behind your speech? TOYAH: It was a huge honour, Woman Of The Year celebrations. It's so motivationally important and you think well, why in a time today but it's incredibly important. To be invited to do that was just amazing. I wanted to just say that because I've been perceived educationally as a no hoper - and even my husband Robert Fripp, one of the world's greatest guitarists - then two weeks ago, (he) said to me and my guitar teacher "Toyah is unteachable". Even he thinks I'm unteachable 

I felt it was an opportunity to stand up and talk about the people I attract in my life, who seem definitely to have some form of disability. And the question is, is it disability or is it a different perception and experience? All are viable So in this speech I talked about two deaf male friends in an audience at Shaftesbury Avenue Theatre. I think 1982 or 83 where I was giving a concert and they were sign languaging the lyrics to each other. I realised they couldn't actually hear the music, but they were experiencing it. So I told this story In 1987 that's was revolutionary, we were just beginning within music theory to understand that people who are locked into their bodies but can't express themselves were still experiencing life and experiencing emotions. So this was all revolutionary and has come a long, long way since then I gave this speech and I just wanted to say that we need to see disability as these people have rights of access to everything but their disability doesn't stop them being phenomenal. So how do we use the word disability? I think we've come a long, long way in those last decades to making everything accessible and possible for everyone and that if we're educated at school, to know that we are all utterly physically unique, then we develop languages and connections no matter who and what we're connecting with It crosses boundaries, we need to cross boundaries and I think that's what that speech was about. If you read it today, I was probably using politically incorrect language but all of that is being ironed out and I'm certainly learning every day about the new language and the new acceptance and what can be said and what shouldn't be said (Watch the speech HERE)

BILLY: As a 31 year old with significant hearing difficulties I applaud you for taking a stand and making the speech that resonated experiences you'd had at the time. Every generation must play its part in spinning the wheel of change for the greater good with the best of intentions

TOYAH: Every generation must have the right to change the world for good. Every generation must do that. Our present young generation who’ve had 15 months of COVID now deserve the mantle, they deserve the right to change the world for good and it's quite an extraordinary time to be alive. I think  it’ll only change if people are taught about this So when I work with my band and if a firestorm starts in my head, I tell them. I say "could you just stop talking while I sort my head out?” Because sometimes you're having a firestorm and you just need to put everything back in place and conversation can be  exhausting. I just educate them about what I need Three years ago, I was in a play (as Queen Elizabeth I in "Jubilee", 2018, above) with a profoundly deaf actress. Sophie Stone, breathtaking actress and she said to us if we talk away from her she's not involved in the conversation. We had to learn to socially interact in that way to make sure we were always facing Sophie. But another thing she said that after eight hours of rehearsal, of reading sign language and doing sign language and reading lips, she was exhausted and she needed to be alone So it's all about interaction and learning and acceptance on a social and a work level. If we're not given that time, or we're not given that journey, the integration and the acceptance and the equality of it hasn't got a chance. So we need to learn this from the dyspraxics and the dyslexics and the hidden disabilities as well 

BILLY: What coping strategies do you use for dyspraxia and dyslexia? Awareness of dyspraxia pales in comparison to other hidden disabilities. What do you think is the cause for this? TOYAH: It's always been a big problem for everyone in my life that I am so capable of sitting in silence for weeks on end. I've actually gone months, well, let's say a month without even uttering a word. Silence and solitude for me is as informative creatively as it is for people in a nightclub. I think part of that is I have exceptional hearing. It's a massive problem. I am three doors away from the street and I can hear people talking on the pavement outside So everyone that comes into this house who knows me is aware that my hearing is exceptional. Because of that I do get very, very tired. There's a lot of information coming in all the time. Socially I say to people, let's get together, let's have a cocktail hour. If it goes to two hours, great. But after that I'm not good company. I get very, very tired by overstimulation of being social. And it's not criticism. It is just how I’m made BILLY: During the pandemic, you and your husband Robert kept the fans entertained while uploading many short, humorous videos online, going viral and racking up billions of hits. You've evidently helped people throughout the past year to keep a smile on their faces, but how have you coped mentally as a neurodiversive person? 

TOYAH: By doing exactly what you just said. I can't really do nothing. The first three weeks of lockdown I was in silence. I was meditating. I was actually praying a lot. Praying for my friends. We had a lot of people pass from cancer in that first three weeks. We lost two musicians. That first three weeks were very, very hard and then after that I realised that we were all in the same boat I wanted my husband to move and I started to teach them how to dance, which he hated. And then we started to do these crazy little films which he absolutely loathed in the beginning. But the messages coming back with “thank you, you saved my life. I'm alone in a single room apartment and I don't know what to do.” So all these messages were coming from around the world Slowly we realised that we'd hit on something that neither of us had ever touched upon before - that is our music was actually really affecting people's lives in a good way. So for me, the lockdown has been the busiest part of my life creating Toyah YouTube. But it's also kept me sane because I'm a performer and a performer needs an audience and it's as simple as that BILLY:  Did it feel like you were personally letting fans down when having to cancel gigs despite it being out of your control? Did the move on to YouTube reassure your fans that all is well and  normality will resume eventually?

TOYAH: Not only that. People who bought tickets didn't know when they were going to see you and people can't give up that money easily in a lockdown if they're not being furloughed, but they're out of work. You want to protect your audience, you want your audience to know that you see them, hear them and honour them. I had three tours cancelled and I wanted people to know that they hadn't lost that ticket money. So the whole of the connection through internet became vital and very, very precious BILLY: I am very much looking forward to seeing you live on tour in March 2022 TOYAH: Oh, that's fantastic! Good! We’ll know what we're doing by March. Completely new lineup, completely new sound BILLY: The “Posh Pop” tour gets underway in autumn of 2021. performing songs from the new album, hits and classics with electro acoustic band. Thank you for appearing on the The Dyspraxic Help 4U Podcast TOYAH: Thank you and thank you for understanding the process Listen to the podcast HERE

[toyahinterviews]

TOYAH ON HARTY BBC1 8.3.1983

TOYAH: (accidentally knocks off Russell’s notes of the table when she sits down) Sorry! (laughs) RUSSELL HARTY: That’s the notes down then. Not only are the audience carried away - my notes are carried away as well TOYAH: Sorry about that RUSSELL: You’ve had to train very hard in this play called “Trafford Tanzi”? (below, Toyah as Tanzi) TOYAH: We only had two weeks of rehearsing. So that gave us natural adrenaline to get the show ready for the public in time - RUSSELL: But I mean physically you had to train quite hard? TOYAH: Yes, I did a lot of judo.  A lot of traditional wrestling, a lot of weightlifting (shows her biceps, laughs) Which I'm stuck with now RUSSELL: For the rest of your life (A clip of “Trafford Tanzi” plays) There you are wrestling with - TOYAH: Ah! Neil McCaul. He played my husband. He was wonderful! I mean he could fight with his mouth whereas I fought with my fists 

RUSSELL:  Was this (Toyah’s pulling and throwing Neil) your husband until the end of the show? TOYAH: No, not at all- RUSSELL: But the way you’re behaving I’m not all surprised at all  TOYAH: But he was brilliant - 

RUSSELL: It's a story of what? A battered baby? TOYAH: It's about a battered baby brought up in the north with the traditions of being a woman. The fact that women are taught to take the step behind and not want to work, only want to get married and have babies. Within the play Tanzi gets married to a husband that's unfaithful to her    So to prove herself, her pride and everything, she takes up wrestling and in a heated argument with her husband says “right, I'll take you on!”. And she takes him on. It's a 20 minute fight and she ends up KO’ing him (knocking him out) RUSSELL: You’ve now landed with these rock hard things for the rest of your life (touches Toyah’s arm) If you let them go they’ll … (the audience and Toyah laugh) ... the flab will fall down and you'll have very big fat hands won’t you? TOYAH: Well, I found what’s very healthy is I do 50 press ups a morning and if I've still got it in me I’ll do 60 before I go to bed RUSSELL: Were you ever fat? TOYAH: Very! When I was a kid I was incredibly fat RUSSELL: What did you look like? Describe yourself TOYAH: I looked like an ape (the audience laughs) RUSSELL: Did you? TOYAH: A real ape. I had very long black hair that was very, very bushy. I looked like a cavewoman. And (puts on a lisp) I talked like this, I had an exceptionally bad lisp and I walked with a wobble and I was like everybody's failure. So I had a lot to fight at RUSSELL: (talks with a lisp) I think your lisp came in quite useful (the audience laughs) through a programme called “Kick Up The 80s”. Did you see that? TOYAH: I deliberately avoided it because I like Tracey Ullman. I thought if I saw it I’ll kill her! RUSSELL: I hope we have a little piece of this because in that programme there is Tracey Ullman actually imitating your lisp (Toyah laughs)

(A clip of “Kick Up The 80s” plays) RUSSELL: That’s Miriam Margolyes and Tracy Ullman doing Toyah Willcox 

TOYAH: It’s very good actually!

RUSSELL: Are you flattered or annoyed by that? TOYAH: I'm told by my father I should be flattered but in the early days, I just was genuinely insecure about it RUSSELL: And cheesed off a bit? TOYAH: But I'm not that insecure now I don’t think RUSSELL: Is there's a core of steel inside this tough lady? TOYAH: I hope not! RUSSELL: This tough exterior? (the audience laughs) TOYAH: (flirtingly) Not at the moment (giggles) RUSSELL: I mean of resolution and of ambition and the energy? TOYAH: I’m still ambitious. I'll always be ambitious. There’s so many people I want to work with. I'm very lucky with who I've worked with up to now. I've got ambitions to work with people like Spielberg. He might let me be the monster in his next movie RUSSELL: (Makes monster noises) Well, if he doesn't, you can KO him and throw him over. Now, you're going to sing us a song. A song that you've written? TOYAH: Yes, it's our latest single. It's called “The Vow” and I wrote it with my lead guitarist Joel - RUSSELL: What is its subject? TOYAH: Its subject matter is we all know our mistakes, but we never know how to correct them. And love can be so close to the destructiveness and I think within what the world is going through now and 2000 years ago, Jesus was supposed to have come down and told us, you know "get your act together" and we haven't. And “the Vow” is saying I love you I love you, but I could hurt to protect you, which is the contradiction RUSSELL: OK, “The Vow”, Toyah Willcox

Watch the interview  HERE  

[toyahinterviews]

LIFE AND TIMES WITH VANESSA FELTZ BBC1, 2000

VANESSA (voiceover) : From punk rocker to Shakespearean actress, distinctive sounding singer to religious programmes presenter Toyah Willcox has had a surprisingly varied career. Toyah was born in 1958 into a middle class family in Birmingham and  had a difficult start in life TOYAH: When the midwife delivered me, apparently the first thing my mother said “is everything there?” and the midwife said “yes ... but” because the right side had developed and the left hadn't so it was just overdeveloped. I had longer legs, longer arms. Clawed feet So everything was turning in like that (twists her arms) and a twisted spine, but relatively easy to deal with. I apparently went into plaster for six weeks. That was to set the spine and the legs. And then when all that came off, it hadn't worked. So it started 10 years of physiotherapy which my mother was taught to give me VANESSA: It's quite amazing to hear somebody describe themselves as non-perfect. I think most people don't even have to grapple with the concept of whether they're perfect or not. They just are 

TOYAH: I wasn't aware of it until I went to school and then I became known as Hopalong. Because of the gate how I walked and also because my speech impediment was very, very bad then. I could hardly speak at all. And apparently my tongue used to hang out of my mouth, which was comical. So people were very, very cruel and it was only when I was with other children that I was aware of my imperfections. Otherwise, I was quite happy (laughs) VANESSA: What you are as a little kid, who, as you say, is not quite perfect and of course you were, as I suppose could have only been expected, quite badly bullied at school 

TOYAH: I was badly bullied, but I was an incredible tomboy. I've always loathed being a girl. My fight against gender started very early. So at school I was incredibly boisterous. I was the one who was always breaking bones, always smashing my teeth I can remember, at the age of five, climbing a climbing frame in pouring rain, mud below me and tight rope walking this climbing frame. I came off it, smashed my nose, smashed my teeth and then started to play with the blood. I really was a very weird kid. And I think even though people bullied me they were slightly wary of me VANESSA (voiceover) Even at a tender age Toyah was starting to rebel against society's views of what the future held for her as a woman TOYAH: I was brought up in a time when women had expectations about their future forced upon them. And I loathe every angle of those expectations. Marriage, children. If you're lucky you could be a secretary, or you may go to university and be a doctor, but you would retire and have children and you would settle down and you'd run the house. I'd rather be dead than have any of those things 

VANESSA (voiceover) 1970: Toyah’s mother was taken into hospital with a serious illness TOYAH: It was my 12th birthday. I got out of bed and no one could find her. She she wasn't in the house, which was completely unusual because she always drove me to school - otherwise I wouldn't go. And she always made us breakfast. She’d disappeared. Couldn't find her VANESSA (voiceover) Toyah’s mother feared that she was dying and didn't want the children to see her in such pain TOYAH: I got a phone call at the school. The headmistress called me into the office to tell me that my mother was possibly going to die. She'd been found hiding under my brother's bed where her bladder had burst because of a gallstone. Imagine the pain! So I wasn't allowed to visit her even though I was told that she was dying. And within the month or two months she was away I changed. I changed radically 

By the time my mother got back she was unrecognisable. She'd probably gone down to about six and a half stone. Clothes were just hanging off and I walked in the house and dad came out of the kitchen and said “there's someone here to see you”. And Mum walked out and I really really wanted to hug her and I didn’t and that was the end of our relationship for a long time VANESSA: Have you hugged her since? (Toyah shakes her head) Why not? 

TOYAH: Umm … Not a hugging family. There's big barriers. (Toyah’s visibly upset) But we know we love each other. (Above, Toyah with her dad Beric and brother Kim) VANESSA: So at this point punk arrives on the scene. For you it must have been a gift from heaven because it must have been all you were looking for in some kind of rebellious expression TOYAH: It was fantastic because the first time in the world I realised that wasn't alone. I went to a club, I went to “Bogarts” - this was in Birmingham and I heard that the Sex Pistols were playing. I thought never heard of them but I'll go anyway and I walked into this club and there were 300 people in this club that all looked like me VANESSA: How did you look at the time? TOYAH: I had black hair but I had green and yellow at the front and the back was all yellow. So I was very punky and I was dressing in bustbin liners and I had a little kind of Andy Pandy (a 1950's children's TV series) suit which I dyed black and I was wearing that and up until this point I'd be laughed at in the street, buses wouldn't stop for me and taxes wouldn't take me home

VANESSA: Explain the appeal of something which is so, on the face of it, unattractive and repellent TOYAH: I disagree! VANESSA: Unappealing! TOYAH: I just I thought I looked really beautiful VANESSA: Oh, you thought you looked gorgeous? TOYAH: Yeah, I thought it was the best way I could look. And up until that point I'd always wanted to look different because I felt different. My expression of punk was I wanted to show how I was feeling internally - that I didn't feel part of the norm. I didn't feel part of everyday life. So I wanted to express it. And this gave me a licence to do it and I did it with a vengeance and I felt extraordinarily beautiful What I liked about this was it made the kind of gender statements that I have been desperate to make all the time. And that was I am not a woman. I am not a man. I am a person and it works 

VANESSA: It's around this time in your teens that you become involved with the Old Rep Theatre and do you start thinking "I want to be an actress" yet? Have you sort of always had that thought? TOYAH: I knew I wanted to act and sing the first time I saw "The Sound Of Music" with Julie Andrews running up that hill in that opening sequence. When I started the Birmingham Rep Theatre School I was 14. I started going Friday evenings for my dancing lessons. Saturday morning for drama I knew exactly what I wanted by then and I wouldn't be swayed. Even a visit to the careers officer when I was 15 - I sat down in the office and she said “what do you want to be?” and I said “I'm going to be an actress and I'm going to be a singer.” And she said “yes, of course” and then put some leaflets about nursing in front of me. I just left the room and I said “just remember my name because one day everyone will know it” VANESSA (voiceover) 1975: Toyah left school with one O-level and started full time at drama school and she soon got a job as a dresser to actress Sylvia Syms TOYAH: I loved it.  I'm very good at being subservient in a perverse sort of way. As soon as I walked into Sylvia Sym’s dressing room on the Monday - she was on tour, she arrived at the Alexandra Theatre in Birmingham and I walked in and I said “is there anything I can do for you, Miss Syms?” and she said “oh, I was starving!” So I went off and got her a sandwich and I said “when do you like your cup of tea? And how do you like it?” 

So she always had a cup of tea at the beginning of the show, in the middle of the show and then at the end, and it was absolutely fine because I had the privilege of standing in the wings watching her work, which taught me more than any theatre school could ever teach me. I loved dressing. I dressed Simon Williams, Sylvia Syms, the whole of Dad’s Army, which was a difficult experience because I was madly in love with Ian Lavender, who would not wear clothes when I was in his dressing room. So that was my first experience of lust VANESSA: There must have been something remarkable about you. I mean obviously there is because you were a dresser and suddenly you're kind of discovered. Somebody sees you and realises that you're not just going to be a dresser. You're going to be an actress 

TOYAH: I was paying my way through drama school by dressing and also doing extra work. My very first day’s extra work at Pebble Mill BBC I made £12. And it was on a retro play about a 1950s rock band with Kate Nelligan starring in and all I had to do was sit at the cafe table watching the band. But little did I realise that everyone was watching me. And I was getting all the close ups in the scene even though I didn't have to talk So the next day I get a call at the theatre school from a director who'd heard about me and wanted to meet me. He was called Nick Bicât and he was trying to cast a young girl in a play. The story was this young girl wanted to appear on Top Of The Pops so badly she breaks into the studio. So Nick came to the drama school to see me and that was it. I got the part, a lead in play ("Glitter", above) VANESSA: Just like that TOYAH: Just like that VANESSA: I know the drama school kept saying “no, audition all the others” -

TOYAH: Yeah, they refused to tell Nick who I was. And they refused to let him see me singly because I wasn't the best student. And so Nick came. He knew who I was immediately. He said I just stood out in the crowd and I went down to London and auditioned but he just knew I'd got the part A clip of “Glitter” plays TOYAH: A wonderful irony from this was that when it showed on telly three months later, Kate Nelligan was watching it, not knowing who I was and that I'd been an extra that day in her play. And she said to Maximilian Schell, who was directing at the National Theatre - “that girl has to be in our play” So I was called down to the National Theatre and joined the company. I was the youngest member of the National Theatre Company in 1976 VANESSA (voiceover) Offers of work flowed thick and fast for Toyah. Derek Jarman cast her in the role of “Mad”, a pyromaniac in his punk film “Jubilee”. And in sharp contrast, she worked opposite Katharine Hepburn in the film “The Corn Is Green” 

1979 was the year that Toyah played the part of “Monkey” in the film “Quadrophenia”, and on television the part of “Sal” (in "Quatermass") TOYAH: When I got “Quatermass” I was finishing off “Quadrophenia”, so I was night shooting “Quadrophenia” and day shooting “Quartermass”. So I actually got pneumonia halfway through that. Sir John Mills was in it and I was playing this kind of tribal love child who was wanting to go to another planet in a spaceship

VANESSA (voiceover) Despite her success as an actress what Toyah really wanted was to be famous for her music. She formed a band but the rock and roll lifestyle took its toll on her health TOYAH: I formed the band and I realised that if I wasn't sexually attractive to the audience, I wasn't going to be doing the band any favours VANESSA: Through your teens you did balloon and get quite potch TOYAH: Yeah. When I was 20 I was a good three stone heavier than I am now. Purely I think because I was lonely, therefore rather than doing what normal people do at night I was eating VANESSA: Was it an effort to to lose weight ultimately? TOYAH: I started taking diet pills but I've taken them recreationally. You could buy them in the bags and just you know, pop them away. And it would mean I'd go on average three days without eating, have a meal, three days about eating, have a meal

Why I'm still alive I think is a miracle. Because I was taking about five of these really strong amphetamines a day and not sleeping. Drinking an awful lot of alcohol to try and come down from it. And I went from being about 11 and a half stone - and I'm only five foot tall - to being seven stone I was just a person of extremes and I do have an addictive nature. I like my habits. I like extremes. I like danger. I'm a real adrenaline junkie. So the whole attraction of popping amphetamine and frightening living daylights out of people because I’d do the most stupid things like climb roofs, climb cranes, steal cars. (It was a) really mad time in my life VANESSA (voiceover) 1981 was the year that propelled Toyah to stardom with her first hit “It's A Mystery”. Finally her childhood dream became a reality TOYAH: It was heaven. The day before, just lounging in the bath at midday, and the phone rang and it was the record company saying “you're on Top Of The Pops tomorrow” and I said “how?! Why?!” And they said “It's A Mystery" has gone straight into the Top 40” I was like “nooo!” (pulls a face) because I hated “It’s A Mystery” 

I thought it was the worst song I've ever recorded. And they said “no, it's true.” And when I turned up, at BBC Wood Lane … oh, I was just so excited! I can't tell you how wonderful it was. And in retrospect, it was probably the most boring day of my life. You just sit around in the dressing room all day and then do your song I was bullied about everything … Everyone ridiculed me for saying I wanted to sing. Here ... I had the flag and I was putting it on top of Everest for the first time. It was fantastic! (Below, performing "It's A Mystery" on Top Of The Pops 19.2.1981) 

VANESSA (voiceover) In 1983 things went from strength to strength for Toyah. Her music career was booming and her fame began to escalate TOYAH: “It’s A Mystery” moved me into the league which was commercial success and being an international name. And not being able to drive down any road without seeing posters with my face on in every shop window VANESSA (voiceover) Just when she thought it couldn't get any better she was offered a part alongside Sir Laurence Olivier in a TV drama (Below, "The Ebony Tower", Toyah with co-stars Laurence Olivier, Roger Rees and Greta Scacchi) TOYAH: I wasn't in awe of working with Laurence Olivier because I'd worked with Katharine Hepburn so many years earlier, and I knew what to expect. That generation of actors has an etiquette that you must keep to. You either call them Sir or Madam or Lord Olivier. And with Lord Olivier ... we just sat and talked hour upon hour about when he formed the National Theatre, when he worked with Marilyn Monroe, when he met Joan Plowright, when he married Vivian Lee 

We got on incredibly well and as for working with him, the hardest thing was that he and Katharine Hepburn worked at a different pace. Modern style of acting is much more natural, it's much more quicker, it's much more throwaway. So you had to just bear in mind that you're making those two generations meet. But it was a really fabulous film to work on. We were treated like stars VANESSA (voiceover while a clip from “The Ebony Tower” plays) Toyah had to strip off completely during some of the scenes TOYAH: As I was maturing, I wanted to be a sexier person. So part of me really wanted to do those naked scenes, yet the rest of me was aware that I was kind of kneeling, therefore my breasts weren’t going to be seen from the best point of view and my thighs weren't going to look good So it was worrying and I starved myself two months to do those scenes. But once you're actually doing it and your director has actually kindly stripped off to be naked with you, there is a kind of enjoyment about it 

VANESSA (voiceover) In 1985 at a charity lunch Princess Michael of Kent introduced Toyah to rock guitarist Robert Fripp from the band King Crimson (below with Toyah) TOYAH: He approached me to do a charity album with him. So I moved down to his studio in his house near Bournemouth and worked with him and within a week he proposed! VANESSA: What made you say yes to him so very quickly? TOYAH: He is the most extraordinary human being I've ever known. He's kind, spiritual, super intelligent and does not manipulate you in any way through fear or intellectualism. He straight down the line. He's truthful, to the point of hurting but you can't help but admire someone like that. And I knew as soon as I met him that this was someone that I could take that journey with where you grow, where everything is an event. I thought this will make a really good marriage VANESSA (voiceover) And on “This Is Your Life” Toyah’s husband made his feelings for her extremely clear after hearing “Freedom”, the track they wrote together (Clip of “This Is Your Life” plays: MICHAEL PARKINSON: Robert, that music really did come from the heart ROBERT: (tearfully) I fell in love with my little wife when she sang that and I haven’t fallen out of love with her since)

VANESSA: They look like tears are the most acute love. I've never seen anything like it! (Toyah laughs) He's just sobbing at the sheer vista of you being there, isn’t he? TOYAH: He's extraordinary. He really really loves me. At the same time he’ll go go off on tour for a year and he will phone me up in tears every day telling me how much he loves me. He's an extraordinary pot of juxtapositions. He really loves me, but we see very little of each other 

VANESSA: I was just going to ask you about that because this is a dynamic that fascinates everybody whoever holds fort about the subject of your marriage. Why does he have to be away so much? TOYAH: He’ll never be at home! He'll never do it VANESSA: What's he doing all the time? Why is he always away and why don't you just go with him? And why aren't you together more? What’s it all about? (Toyah laughs) TOYAH: I refuse to be a rock and roll wife. My career has always been my priority. And it's the same with him. We're nomadic, basically. We are both nomadic and the distance between us actually holds us together VANESSA: You don’t want to be separate! You want to be together! TOYAH: You do in the beginning, and I think then children come and children hold that mesh together. But we we didn't have that in the equation of our relationship VANESSA: It's not an accident that there are no children. You took the decision to be sterilised and it's what you wanted to do and yet having done it, you immediately felt, you say, robbed of your femininity 

TOYAH: Yeah. Very, very odd feeling. Knowing I didn't want children, knowing I didn't want to accidentally get pregnant and go through all those decisions of whether you keep it or lose it. And there was another factor - because I don't have a full socket in the hip on the right side that can dislocate. I have to be very, very careful with dislocation So pregnancy would have meant that I'd have to spend the last three months of the pregnancy kind of in a chair or lying down. So I got sterilised. There's no problem in me making that decision, but when I woke up after the sterilisation I thought “what have I done? I've I've actually played with God's decision of who and what I am”. I felt very strange about it. Now I don't at all, but for the first year of being sterilised, I felt weird VANESSA: So no part of you now thinks, oh gosh, I wish I’d just left it to chance or happenstance? 

TOYAH: (Shakes her head) I really am very, very firm in knowing that I don't want children. Obviously now I'm 42 ... I mean, I suppose I could, but I've never had those feelings or that calling never VANESSA (voiceover) In 1991 Toyah started presenting television programmes. (Back at the interview) This is yet another unexpected incarnation. By this time you've been so many people and done so many things. Classical Shakespearian actress, you've been an absolute top selling singer and suddenly you’re a TV presenter.  Did you ever dream of doing something like that? TOYAH: No! Never dreamed of doing Panto either! (Vanessa laughs) What happened was I was in Los Angeles visiting Robert who was working on an album and a phone call came from England. And it was my agent and she said, “Oh, you really don't want to do this. But there's this programme that's asked you to present it” and I said, “well, actually yes, I do!”

Because I'd never done it and I wanted the experience and it was the Midlands version of “01-For London”. It was called “First Night” and I spent a year doing that. It taught me how to present, taught me how to interview. taught me how to write as a journalist, and I haven't looked back since then VANESSA (voiceover) For the next 10 years Toyah went on to present a rich variety of television and radio programmes. (Back at the interview) Nobody can say you're not a grafter, you're extremely hard working and always have been TOYAH: I love my work. I live for my work, and nothing can substitute my work. I'm very, very honest about that and my friends understand that and my husband understands that in a way that he's the same. I only get any sense of calm or satisfaction when I'm working If I'm not working, I'm almost a manic depressive. I'm just not worth knowing. But now I'm slowly moving back towards being a film actress and TV actress with doing “Barmy Aunt Boomerang”, which is a BBC children's programme (Below with Richard Madden) VANESSA: By the way my children say congratulations on your Australian accent - it’s magnificent 

TOYAH: (in a thick Aussie accent) Oh, bless them sweetheart. I think that's just so kind, dear little Sheilas (Back to normal accent) I do “Aunt Boomerang”, which I based on Barry Humphries (who plays "Dame Edna Everage") (they both laugh) I just finished the feature film “Most Fertile Man In Ireland”

VANESSA: Tell me about that TOYAH: I was working in Malaysia, got a phone call - could I do a day's filming in Dublin? So I got the next plane to Dublin. Shot all my scenes in one day and a miniscule role but the pivotal role in the whole story. I play a fertility doctor who cannot have children in Northern Ireland who finds a man that is so fertile he can make sterile women pregnant. It’s a comedy (they both laugh) And there you have it. A day's filming and I'm in, really, one of the best films that will be out next year VANESSA: What do you think the future holds? How would you like it to pan out? TOYAH: How I’d like it is very different probably what it holds. I would still like to sing but it's got to be on my terms. I can't handle huge fame like that ever again. I love my independence. I love being able to walk into a supermarket and browse but I want to be a film actress, a TV actress and I want to sing and I want to write books but I know I will not be sitting at home being idle VANESSA: I have a feeling all those things will happen and more. I would not be surprised if you were suddenly an astronaut. I really wouldn't! (Toyah laughs) Toyah Willcox, thank you very much indeed TOYAH: Thank you 

You can watch the programme HERE

[toyahinterviews]

Classic Pop Magazine, Issue 71, Sept/Oct 2021

[toyahinterviews]

TOYAH ON BBC RADIO SCOTLAND WITH BILLY SLOAN 30.10.2021

BILLY: Toyah Willcox has made her career as a successful singer and actress, and one of her first big breaks on the big screen was when she appeared alongside Phil Daniels and Sting in the film “Quadrophenia”. So was she a fan of the 1973 album first, before being cast as “Monkey” and the movie version of Pete Townshend’s mod rock opera? TOYAH: I was a fan of The Who. I've always been a fan of The Who. I didn't know “Quadrophenia” until I received the script from the production team. And then of course this opened up The Who for me even more, and the extraordinary writing abilities and talents of Pete Townshend. So I've always been attracted to Roger Daltrey’s voice, to the power, to the mod movement and the sheer the finesse of what The Who created has always been very attractive to me.   Unfortunately, my career started at a time in punk where punk was opposed to what The Who created, but the energy of “My Generation”  and all those songs was pure punk. And suddenly I found myself in “Quadrophenia” as an actress, and I was having to hide the fact that I was a punk rocker. But I always respected and love The Who because they were the original punks. BILLY: How did you actually get the part?

TOYAH: Franc Roddam, the director, asked me to get John Lydon – Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols through a screen test for the part of “Jimmy”. So I went along to John Lydon’s flat and ran through the scenes and he was absolutely astonishing. Firstly, he was a gentleman, he was an absolute treat to be with. There was none of that kind of persona of Johnny Rotten. He worked incredibly hard. He knew his lines. Then he and I went to Shepperton Studios where we shot our screen tests. I was playing “Steph”, he was playing “Jimmy”.   Then I didn't hear another thing and I was making a movie with Katharine Hepburn at Lee Electrics in Wembley and the production office and “Quadrophenia” was next door. So I walked around the outside of the building and saw Franc Roddam in his office and I banged on the window, and I said “Frank, give me a part because I did this favour for you. Give me a part”. John Lydon by the way didn't get the role of “Jimmy” because no one would insure the film if he was in it because of his reputation in the Sex Pistols.   But I knew that Franc Roddam hadn't cast the role of “Monkey” and he called me in and Phil Daniels was in the office at the time with him and Franc said if I could perform the party scene with Phil Daniels, he'd consider me for “Monkey”. We did the scene there and then and I got the job. BILLY: What kind of person was "Monkey"?

TOYAH: “Monkey” for me was the girl with the golden heart that didn't make good. “Monkey” was a drug dealer because she worked in a chemist and she was just slowly taking all the pills and selling them to her friends. And she wanted to be loved and she wanted to be the number one girl but of course she wasn't, “Steph” was the number one fantasy girl for every male in the film. And we all know who this character “Monkey” is. She's the one that is that girl in the gang, but it's the one with the golden heart. BILLY: And there's a real ensemble cast because Leslie Ash (as "Steph"), as you mentioned earlier, there's also Sting as the “Ace Face.” The cast also included people like a very young Ray Winston, Michael Elphick, who was "Jimmy's" father, Kate Williams, who was "Jimmy's" mother, Timothy Spall. And of course, Phil Daniels. And it's not hard to almost imagine anybody else playing “Jimmy Cooper” other than Phil, isn't it? TOYAH: Oh, Phil Daniels was absolutely perfect for the role. It's the most ultimate character I think he's ever created. He was so astonishing and breathtaking. And even today, as acting has evolved into a more naturalistic form, Phil Daniels was ahead of game. Its perfection and that's why the film is still as powerful as it is today.  

And looking back with hindsight now, I think Phil deserved more accolades. He deserved more nominations. But the film wasn't critically well received at the time of its release. And then the audience took it in their hearts and the audience, a generation after generation, the audience has returned to “Quadrophenia”, making it an absolute classic of its time. BILLY: The story of “Quadrophenia” is set in London and Brighton in 1964. And you had to be so accurate, recreating that time period in terms of the clothes and the haircuts and the locations and the scooters. How was that done? 

TOYAH: Franc Roddam was a documentary maker before making “Quadrophenia”, an award winning documentary maker and he wanted “Quadrophenia” to feel like a documentary. So he encouraged us to go out and socialise with people who had lived through the mod movement and still had the lifestyle within their lives. So we were going out at weekends and partying with people who've been mods, with people who have been rockers, and they did not hold back on the culture. They really immersed us in it.   Also, we were in dance studios in Covent Garden for three hours a day learning the dance movements, which we enjoyed so much, because as I’ve discovered with all great musicians around the world, Sting - great musician, great songwriter - can not tell his left foot from his right foot. Boy, did we have so much fun with that! This beautiful "Adonis" who we spent so much time with couldn’t dance, and we were just drawing focus to it all the time. Wonderful, wonderful man.     Other things that we did, we had to learn to ride scooters, we had to learn how to repair scooters, how it is to fall off a scooter. We needed to know all of this. We needed to know the dangers that surrounded us as well as the joys that surrounded us. And we immersed ourselves in this for about three months before principal shooting started.  

The incredible thing about the principal first stage shoot - we were shooting the riot scenes first and talk about a baptism of fire. We were in Brighton with 5000 extras shooting riot scenes (below) for 20 hour days. And that really bonded us as actors, because we had to protect each other, look out for each other, find food, find water, find toilets. I mean it was extraordinary. And then we made the rest of the movie, by which time we were a family. And we've remained family. We are one of the closest knit teams I have ever known in the whole of my career. And we remain that way. 

BILLY: One of the other real pivotal scenes in the movie is the dancehall scene where Jimmy is trying to impress “Steph” and he jumps up onto the balcony and then leaps off into the crowd. That must have been an incredible scene to be involved in. Was it? TOYAH: Yeah, I think we shot those in Southall, North London somewhere. It was really wonderful to do and Phil Daniels was completely committed to doing that jump. I mean it must have hurt like hell. I think the first jump he did was into boxes. I don't think there was a stunt person involved. I'm absolutely sure Phil Daniels did the jump in the dance hall sequence himself. It was incredibly good fun because we got to show off our dance prowess.   I was dancing mainly with the actor Phil Davies, who I just absolutely adore. It was lovely because within that sequence, all the characters were able to develop and signal to the audience who and what we were by the style of their dancing, which you don't normally get the chance to do in films and the mod dances were just gloriously precise. So all of us got a chance to shine in that sequence. BILLY: During the production of the movie there was some sad news when we learned that Keith Moon had passed away. What impact did that have on both the actors and the film production?

TOYAH: All of the actors were looking forward to meeting Keith Moon. All of us we just couldn't wait. This man was a legend. He was a bad boy, a great drummer. He had attitude. He was everything all of us wanted to be. But the week before we started principal photography, he died.   So when I first met The Who and I was in a room with The Who, with the producers, with the rest of the cast for the first time - it was literally the day after Keith Moon died. And the decision was made that the film was going to continue. They did think about discontinuing the film. And thank goodness it was kind of made in his honour and in his memory. But we were all brokenhearted that we were never going to get to meet this legend. And I think he would have been on site every day enjoying all of us and we'd have been enjoying him. And it was a huge loss. That potential was a massive, massive loss.

BILLY: You spoke earlier about the lasting affection for “Quadrophenia”. 42 years on - what do you think the legacy is of both the movie and the album? TOYAH: I think the movie is an astonishing film and an astonishing achievement made with no compromise, with great heart. And I think young people who feel diswoned by society will always find themselves and  their story in that movie. And that's incredibly important, especially at a time like this where young people have lost a year of their lives. I think the legacy of the music is great music never goes away.   Heritage music and music that was there first, that broke the mould first, that inspired many generations of musicians to come, is the music that will remain constant and “Quadrophenia” will remain constant. It's one of those albums along with my husband's album “In The Court Of The Crimson King”, with Sting’s and The Police albums - they're constant so “Quadrophenia” is up there with the greats. BILLY: We're asking everybody who takes part in the programme to choose their favourite Who track and naturally you have gone for a song from “Quadrophenia”. Which one is it and why?

TOYAH: My favourite Who song is “Rain On Me” because of the actual passion. It's about a young soul facing the future, just wanting their own place in the world. There's anger in it. There's hope, there's determination and it's an absolutely beautiful composition musically. And that is the song that I would choose.

[toyahinterviews]

TOYAH TALKS SHEP FARMING IN BARNET WITH PHIL MARRIOTT 13.11.2020

PHIL: I'm so thrilled to be with Toyah Willcox on zoom! How are you? TOYAH: Woooo! I'm OK. It's really good to see you. I haven't seen many people in the last seven months so it's so good to see you! PHIL: I was just going to say – likewise. The last time I saw you was at Wise Buddha, a studio just off Oxford Street in Central London and we could see each other face to face TOYAH: That was about 18 months ago PHIL: I know! How have you been? TOYAH: I'm really good. Well, I'm really confused because I live in a market town, on a square, one High Street and I'm bang in the middle of all of this. I have a chemist next door, we did have a bank next door but we bought it and that's now our offices. So I'm looking outside my window and there is all normality. There's no sign of any kind of lockdown and I'm wondering if I'm being lied to because I've got people on park benches, drinking coffee, talking to everyone, eating and I'm thinking “I thought this was a lockdown!” I'm so confused! PHIL: It's crazy, isn't it? I went past a bar yesterday and they were walking in and out and my partner said "hang on a minute! It's meant to be lockdown!" I think it was take-away, it just felt like normality, it just felt normal. It's weird TOYAH: This feels normal. None of that terror of last April. Everyone's just having a lovely time out there and I'm thinking someone's played a joke on me because I've been indoors for so long PHIL: We do need it though, don't we … By the way I've been loving your lockdown shows every Saturday. It's been a real ritual. I've been pottering around and then I've been switching onto your Toyah At Home show on Saturday morning TOYAH: Oh, thank you PHIL: It's been fantastic, really enjoyed those. And they've been really honest as well because you've been talking about your life and feeling nostalgic and talking about what's happening at the moment and we don't normally get to see that – you walking around your house, showing things in your house, your books. It's been brilliant 

TOYAH: I'm going to keep it up because normally on my working year I'm running an office. I run the band, I run the record side of things, I run the gigs – booking them and I never get time for any of that so it's been fantastic for me and for my husband Robert. We've been kind of been able to address what fans need

That might sound silly because fans just need to see you live and (to) do your music – well, lockdown has proven much more than that. I'm going to try and keep it going and try and prioritise the connection we've made with the fans and stop prioritising the ridiculous amount of bureaucracy we both have to deal with. So it's been great on that level it's been a fantastic year! PHIL: It's been really good for the fans as well like you say because they really appreciate it because they're feeling a bit lonely and isolated and it's good to have that company as well, isn't it? TOYAH: It's been shocking. We do a lot of celebrity messaging. We were a bit doubtful about it at first. We thought "oh gosh is this a step too far?" It's been a absolute joy and occasionally you get the odd message from someone saying "I'm so desperate, I'm so alone, can you just say something to help shake this blackness off me" We've really really loved every minute of doing these messages and also realising that our broadcasts have a deeper meaning than just us going "look at us". It's all become so much deeper and that is beautiful. It's affected my writing. The new album Posh Pop is really deep, it's really passionate and it really rocks and that could only have happened because of this exceptional year   PHIL: We have to talk about Sheep Farming In Barnet. I can't believe it's 40 years TOYAH: Look what I've got! (Waves the box set about) PHIL: I know! I can't wait to see that TOYAH: This is an exclusive! PHIL: Amazing! TOYAH: It only arrived two days ago 

PHIL: It's new images as well isn't it, like you've shown there, new photographs that we've not seen before. This is an album that was released in 1979 as an AP – an Alternative Play (above) and then it was released as an album in 1980 so you're obviously celebrating the 40th anniversary. What are you memories of this though because obviously a lot of stuff gets forgotten about. You've got a very good memory I have to say, watching your Toyah At Home videos. You seem to remember a lot of detail. Do you remember detail of that period? TOYAH: It's shockingly bad. My wonderful archive manager and he designed this, Craig Ashley, designed with Alan Sawyers – he writes a essay about each project. We're already onto Blue Meaning and then we're onto Anthem so we're 12 months ahead. We put this (Sheep) to bed three months ago. My memories were jogged by an essay that Craig had to send me. He knows more about my life than I do. He prompted my memory with this astonishing essay that's in here (shows the boxset) I thought "I did that?! I did that ?! Oh my God!" This is a long time ago this album but what I will say about it – I've always remembered that I think it's the one of the most relevant, one of the most original, ingenious albums of that period and it's never had that credit. Cherry Red (the record company) have really taken this on board and they are giving it the 100%. It's a beautiful album. There's a beautiful innocence but there's also so many pathways we opened for other people with this album. It's a fun album. It's a real danceable album. It's about youthful energy. It's beautiful and it's a side of punk that isn't that well known. It's great. I adore this album 

PHIL: So this album was recorded – correct me if I'm wrong – Chappel Studios, New Bond Street wasn't it, in Central London - TOYAH: Yes! PHIL: Which is now the Mulberry store. There's something about quite poignant about that – it should always be that studio I guess but what are your memories of recording there? Do you have many memories of you actually recording it? TOYAH: Next door was Chanel and Hermes and I just pooh pooed them “Who wants to spend that on a handbag?” I don't want to spend half a million quid on a silk scarf. If only I knew, hindsight is a beautiful thing. The studio was upstairs, very very traditional. Almost old fashioned because the studio was a song writer's studio. There was quite a few studios in the corridor I was in. We were one of the first punk acts to go in. I found the whole recording process in this particular instance very difficult because we now know I sing without headphones on. I cannot do that (puts hands over ears) It just affects me emotionally. So this took about four albums to discover that. Steve James, our producer, realised that he was going to get the best performance out of me if he just put speakers in the room and I performed as live. That was a learning curve - it was a big learning curve. So the first songs we recorded - for me – were emotionally quite tough  because I was just trying to learn how to work within this dead space. Recording studios – if you haven't been in one – have no sound reflection.

So we've got sound reflection here, I'm surrounded by mirrors, I can hear myself speak but in a studio it's a dead sound. It's really difficult to form notes in that kind of sound so … You asked me what was the experience like? It was a major learning curve of dealing with working within dead sound. Now, if I'm acting and I'm in a studio there's nothing more beautiful than dead sound because it makes you forget about the camera. So it was very very enlightening, it was energetic, we were an energetic team I think it was challenging for the whole band because Keith Hale was brought in as an arranger and that was frustrating for Pete Bush who is the main keyboard player on this album and he felt very threatened by that. But all this rather glorious usurp thing and power play is the result of this album. That and the fact that we honed every song in front of a live audience, which is such a privileged thing to so. We would do these incredible long encores that were as along as the actual show because the audience would never let us go We would run out of songs so we'd start to play them stuff we were formulating in soundcheck and this is how we came up with these glorious arrangements because we knew what affected the audience before we went into the recording studio. That is something that all young writers should have the privilege to do today because to watch an audience affected by a bridge or a chorus – you just know what you need to do as a songwriter. So much of today happens away from a live audience and this is all about live audience work. It was magnificent PHIL: The album title itself – it still raises eyebrows today, doesn't it? Sheep Farming In Barnet. It's one of those really distinctive album titles that really stand out -

TOYAH: I know! Well, I lived in Barnet and bang in the middle of this urban kind of chaos with the A406 was a field with sheep in it and I just thought   "sheep farming in Barnet?" So I wanted to call the album something that didn't relate to an emotion and didn't relate to another song. I wanted something completely out there. This is me (show the album cover) having broken in to Fylingdales - the early warning system - where they had sheep grazing and when we broke in we found an awful lot of dead sheep and we were arrested ten minutes after that was taken Bill Smith the art director was with me as was Gem, my boyfriend at the time and we had to hide the film down my pants. We knew we would not be body searched. We were literally just marched off the premises so we got the film out. So that whole "sheep farming in Barnet" was just a big question mark of what is our reality? PHIL: Is that something you do today? Stuff the - TOYAH: Guerilla filming? PHIL: Just stuff the evidence? TOYAH: Everything? Yeah, everything goes down my pants. As I get older it it's one of my things I do with my personal dementia – everything goes down my pants (Phil laughs) PHIL: I remember NME did a review – I think it was a three star review, it should've been more obviously but for the NME that was pretty good. At the time they called you a "post punk Grace Slick" -   TOYAH: I have no problems with being the punk Grace Slick. My goodness that woman was a great voice PHIL: It's a nice comparison. Now, the album was split into two parts – much like Kate Bush's Hounds Of Love which had the Ninth wave as the 2nd part  - TOYAH: Yeah! This was 1979! (waves the box set about)  

PHIL: I was going to say – you did that before her. Both brilliant albums obviously but this had Heaven and it had Hell and there is a lot of darkness in this album because there's a lot of vivid imagery when you listen to those lyrics. I suppose it's the horror and sci-fi fan in you, is it?   TOYAH: It's very dark poetry. I mean Neon Womb is quite innocent. I was making a movie with Katherine Hepburn called The Corn Is Green. I had to get on the tube train. The first tube train of the morning in Battersea which was six in the morning and I had to walk over to Victoria to get the train. And I just remember being alone in this tube that was neon lit and I thought "this is like a neon womb."

So that's where that name came from. Indecision I wrote in my home in Birmingham, the lyrics came there and I was doing lots of TV promotion for the film Jubilee and I just couldn't make up my mind what to wear so Indecision came out of that. And then Waiting is very dark Waiting is about if we looked at the planet and it only had burn layers and every burn layer was a war and you'd cut through them you'd see a very different planet. We wouldn't see a green planet. So Waiting is about layer upon layer upon layer of wars that we've had in the past … Let's say – let's be brave about this – 50 000 years? It's an endless theme on this planet. So that's what that one is about. Danced is about a second coming because I was brought up in extreme religious education by parents who weren't religious So because I was a rebel and because I was really out there as a child and I've always been a bit like this - they thought to cleanse my soul I should go into extreme religious education which I had from the age of about 10 ten right through to 14. So that has affected the poetry of my life a lot and that's what Danced is about.

Danced is saying the 2nd coming is coming – this is fantasy – but it ain't going to be a human being! It's someone coming from up there so that's what Danced is about. I'm always questioning the metaphor of what I've been taught and there's so many metaphor's in this (shows the box set). But I think that's what the fans like is that I use the imagery of metaphors to question things  

PHIL: And there are so many anthems on this as well, particularly for fans that have been with you from day one. You know, Danced. You mentioned Neon Womb as well. These are real live favourites. There's a couple of of tracks I've never seen you perform live, Computer being one of those. Is that something that you would think about playing? TOYAH: Yeah! In lockdown we had to do the DVD filming (for the disc in the box set). Nigel Clark of Dodgy, my neighbour, came round and we performed Computer. He performed it beautifully, he even did backing vocals and that's on the DVD version of this (shows the box set). It's gorgeous so we could put that in live now but there's so much material, my whole back catalogue, I have to capture in shows today, an hour and half shows I have to capture about 28 albums. And remember 14 of those songs are hit singles. So we chop and change and we try and fit everything in. Computer might come into the show but then we'll get people complaining we can't fit in Neon Womb, Danced and everything else PHIL: Too many songs to play TOYAH: There's just too many songs to play. You got Our Movie as well. I get a big call for Victims Of The Riddle but that is impossible to sing live. It's in an octave higher register than I normally sing in today and also it's one of those songs once you've done the first two lines everyone goes to the bar or starts talking. So we've decided if the fans demand a song and they don't listen to it – we don't do it!   

PHIL: I want to talk about the digipak that you have in your hands of this album because it's a real treat isn't it, for fans because there's a lot of versions they've never heard before. We mentioned Computer just then. That sounds quite different in its demo form. Are you quite happy to release these demos because obviously these have never been released before. It's so great to hear these now after so long TOYAH: This is the first album released where Joel Bogen (the original Toyah band guitarist and composer) and myself have actually been corresponded with about having permission of them going on the album. So one of my top selling albums in the world now is an album called Mayhem which is demos that Joel and I never wanted to be heard and ironically that is the world top selling Toyah album

So this time around now Cherry Red own the whole back catalogue they have agreed that will never happen again so we're even re-vamping Mayhem for its re-release. So there are 30 additional tracks, most of them unheard   going onto this. It's a double LP and a live DVD and there's even DVD footage that's never been seen before     PHIL:  It's a real Christmas present, isn't it? TOYAH: It's perfect! PHIL: Yeah! TOYAH: When we do demos they're pre-producer arrangements so obviously when you get into the studio and having heard the demo and hopefully played the song live in front of an audience you can then re-work it. So doing a demo is like trying out a recipe for a cake and if you feel that you can improve – then you improve and most of the time that's what people do do PHIL: So Victims Of The Riddle is your debut single which is featured on this album. There was another version on the single B-side which was called Vivisection. To me that seems like a kind of outspoken view of your hate for animal experiments. Was that the case? Was it that obvious? TOYAH: Yeah PHIL: It was?

Above: Toyah with her rabbit WillyFred in 2016

TOYAH: Yeah. I like to think it's not so awful today and I think a lot of people, a lot of human beings stepped forwards and said "you can test that on us." So stop breeding animals to test on. So I put my hand up here – I'm against vivisection but I've had hip replacement, I've had life saving surgery for cancer. Animals have paid so that I can live. So it's not as if I've even avoided every aspect of the results of vivisection.

Where my argument is and if the make-up industry - which has something like a £6 billion fund for testing - keeps testing on animals they're never going to change the world and protect and do good husbandry to animals. Now at the time we were making this … '79 … this was … I mean it was rampant. Animals were just being treated so badly I was a very experimental singer in the beginning, I use my voiced as an instrument thus the stylisation on Vivisection. And I wanted to use this as a wake up call to those who didn't know about the cruelty to animals but also the amount of people who were willing to be human test people.

And it was just – if you don't bring that into your audience's intelligence then no-one could do anything about it and I think the greatest revolution we have had in the 40 years is we've stopped buying things unless they adhere to an ethic we believe in.

So good husbandry, non-cruelty to animals, respect for animals, understanding that animals do have souls, they do have an emotional life, they feel pain as much as they feel joy and this was what that was about   PHIL: I'm glad you answered that question that way because I certainly saw it as very influential at the time – like you say it was a different time back then, in the 70's and the late 70's. There was a lot more of that nastiness going on and as a result more people have become vegetarian and vegan as well over the years, particularly the last five years people have become vegan which is great. So it's a good shift, isn't it? 

TOYAH: It's very good. I think in a year's time when we have a vaccine for Covid and there has been human guinea pigs involved here ... I think one of the biggest outcomes of Covid and Covid history we probably, worldwide, will become vegetarian. What I mean by that is the easiness within Covid is mutating within the animal circuit and if we keep consuming animal flesh we are probably going to help Covid mutate even more. I'd like to think that one of the kind of strange blessings of this exceptional year is that the majority of the planet will become vegetarian   PHIL: Siouxsie and The Banshees did the Kaleidoscope album a few years ago which I saw at South Bank, I know you're a fan as well, of Siouxsie - TOYAH: Yes! PHIL: Is that something that you (want to) do with Sheep Farming? Do it as a whole? TOYAH: (I'll) do it with any album but people want Siouxsie. I've had to  - this is my career “Let me in! Let me in! (bangs the air with her fist) “Give me a fucking job!” Siouxsie, you know, gets invited because people absolutely adore her. I'm not on Siouxsie's level but I think what will change for me because in the last 40 years my catalogue has been with a record label that has actively allowed it to die and now Cherry Red- as soon as they announce these releases – I mean this went number one in the pre-order charts across the board and Cherry Red have released the demand is huge But if you don't have the record company behind you and the PR behind you and the team behind you … I don't get invited to play whole albums at the Queen Elizabeth Hall. So I now think this is going to change quite radically and hopefully my work will get the respect it deserves. But it has to be out there for that to happen and in the last 40 years it's just been buried  

PHIL: Last Goodbye, another track on this album, last time we spoke we talked about your love of horror   TOYAH: Yeah  PHIL: And you told me watch The House That Jack Built, which I saw after your recommendation and yeah – it disturbed me very much (laughs) TOYAH: That's an astonishing film. There's another one I'll recommend to you and it's very gentle. It's a love story but it also it also tiptoes into the surreal and horror and it's called Border. I just adore this film    - PHIL: I've seen it, it's amazing. It really gets under your skin, doesn't it? TOYAH: It's gorgeous. That is like reading a really good book. It translates beautifully PHIL: Absolutely, a very atmospheric film. But Last Goodbye on Sheep Farming – it's quite an evocative lyric. Again quite a dark lyric. There is lightness as well, obviously, on Sheep Farming but I'm just going to read the lyric here : “He points the knife between her eyes. Its light reflects on the one he despises. Here's one for the pain, here's one for the lies. When flood flows out I watch her say goodbye”  That is quite - TOYAH: It's a revenge song but I mean this is about the vulnerability of men and men are vulnerable and this is the ultimate revenge. He can take on someone who is more powerful than him and it's a woman. So I always like to kind of invert what people see as normal. I think woman are just as easily aggressive as men are and devious and plotting so it's revenge on someone who has psychologically destroyed someone else.

And I think historically – I need to place it in context – 40 years ago and even 50 years ago you never heard about women's prisons, you never heard about female criminals. It was always men. There were only three that we heard about when I was young that were serial killers. I'm not going to name them, let's not give them the publicity but what you didn't hear was about was petty female criminals, female prisons and female aggression. It was never reported 50-40 years ago as it is today. You know you've got Piers Morgan doing “Female Serial Killers” today so here we were in the punk movement, '79, and it was such an opportunity to be one of the first women in this movement that I could invert everything I'd been taught And one of them is about women being psychologically cruel which kind of covers a lot of the early work. So I was just inverting stories and turning them into myth really. And another thing that was emerging at this time … computers were being programmed at this time on a mass level. So a lot of people we worked with, our roadies would disappear at night to go and do binary programming into computers and this was going on 24/7 to get computers how they are today. So there was this kind of secret technology going on that fascinated us but we didn't understand I mean if we ever knew we would have a phone in our hand (shows her mobile) or we'd be able to talk like this (on Zoom) … that was science fiction. And another thing that science fiction  back then … was … oh, it's going out of my head … ah yes! Was how games were developed. So Dungeons and Dragons was very much a fantasy game then and it was the only fantasy game  as was – Lord Of The Rings was a book, you never realised it would be made into a really brilliant  digitally composed film. So fantasy for me was very very important. It was escapism from a normality that could be not only boring but could also be dangerous so all of that reflects in my work as well 

PHIL: I could sit and talk to you Toyah for hours. I know you've got other interviews to do because you've got so much to do in the coming weeks before this re-release, this re-vamp of Sheep Farming In Barnet. It's out on the 4th of December but I have got one last question which I invited people to send in and this is a question from Darren Anthony and he's asked which 3 things, if there are 3 things, would you change about your debut album if you could? TOYAH: Ohhh! Do you know, Darren, this is such a good question and the only thing I would change – because there's a beautiful innocence about this album – I would change nothing about the music. I would've changed immediately the technique I use for singing because I've only in the last ten years really gleaned my 100% technique. And I would … just … how can I put this? If you're a singer you understand “opening the throat”. I would open the throat more, I would've had more confidence as a singer Instead I'd get into the studio and lack of confidence would make me go (pulls shoulders in and head behind hands) I would just close up like that and the voice became quite small. So that's one thing I would change but I can only answer that in hindsight. Elusive Stranger is an incredibly popular song and I would've just not sung the intro in that octave. I would bring that down an octave which would make it far easier to sing live today.

And I can't find a third thing I would've changed. Perhaps the one thing I would've changed about the whole of the beginning of my career – I was very against my natural femininity where women who are hugely successful not only exhibit their femininity but they control their femininity and I saw my femininity as a barrier that I needed to either kind of break down or walk away from. So I probably would exploit it - in the right way, in the Madonna way – my femininity PHIL: I should say it's also out on white vinyl which I've ordered and I can't wait to see that either! TOYAH: Wahey! PHIL: To represent the golf balls on the sleeve   TOYAH: Oh, I know! It's a clever design. It's clever. Phil - thank you so much and I hope see you sooner than the 18 months - PHIL: Yes, me too. Good luck and stay safe. Thank you, Toyah TOYAH: Good luck everybody!   

You can watch the interview HERE

[toyahinterviews]

CELEBRITY RADIO WITH ALEX BELFIELD 29.4.2019

Recorded at the Ravenshead Village Hall, Ravenshead, Nottingham ALEX BELFIELD: Toyah Willcox, how are you? TOYAH: I'm really good, thank you ALEX: You look amazing and you sound better than ever. I just stood here for twenty minutes watching you soundcheck for a gig tonight and my God! What a voice! I mean it's operatic, isn't it? TOYAH: Well, I trained in German opera from about the age of 14 right through to 18. I keep catching myself talking German although my German isn't great. But that really helped me. If anything it's hard to get it out of the voice because when I have to do the big notes at the end of songs that's when I kick the opera in I have a real ambition to be in an opera one day and I never say never and I don't think doors close. I think one day it might happen. But if I did go into an opera it would have to be really modern and really extreme. Because I am a rock singer ALEX: You're a singer, you're an actress, you're a personality, you're a star at heart. What do you want to be? TOYAH: It's a really good question because psychologically I have to work. If the phone isn't ringing or I'm not creating something I don't really exist. I just sit there … blank. So I always create projects and by creating projects other things come in. Last year I was playing Queen Elizabeth I in the stage version of “Jubilee”, which was a complete surprise. But also it featured my music This year we've got “In The Court Of The Crimson Queen” coming out. It's gone beyond on what we thought would happen. In the pre-order chart it went number one across the board. It's out on April the 12th and fingers crossed we'll get a chart position with that. But it's just been great. In the last two days I've done 50 radio interviews and people are loving the music So you ask what I am? This year I'm dominantly a singer but I'm also doing a movie. I've got a great movie coming up in June. So I just keep on filling that diary and see what happens! (Alex laughs) Tonight we're doing an acoustic show. I like to think that the acoustic is helping me to become a better musician and a singer because when you only have two guitars and three voices you've really got to be spot on It's taught me so much doing this show. We've done it now for five years. We go into lovely little places. This is a village hall near Nottingham, completely sold out. We could've done a week here but it will be magical. We know that because it's up close and it's very personal   

ALEX: It seems like you were born to be on stage. When we look back to your childhood, because you were so shy and so bullied and to stand up on stage today must be a huge strain still, or is it a second home? TOYAH: The acoustic show I love and I know it's going to be good. It's just a magical show. We even had a stage invasion in Otley last week (Alex laughs) There's just something about this show. I think people are so close they go a bit bonkers We do the festivals so we do experience the large audiences, between 30 and 60 000. I'm more frightened for those than I will be tonight. Part of it is that it's so special. You feel the energy. There is a definite change in atmosphere when you've got that amount people in front of you. I find it overwhelming I did a guest appearance in Glastonbury three years ago and I felt as if my feet needed to be nailed to the ground. I just felt as if though I was levitating off the ground. There was quarter of a million people on site and it's just radically different to anything I've ever experienced. So I'm a little bit sensitive to the audience. I'd say I'm more scared in the arenas than I am at the acoustic ALEX: You've got that great thing like Cliff, Cilla and all these people - that you have a legendary status - TOYAH: You think? ALEX: That we only need your first name - TOYAH: (laughs) I'm Toyah – yeah. I think it's very nice that people are saying that I have legendary status. I think it's because of my age (laughs) ALEX: You've nothing to prove, you're working harder than you've ever worked. It must be thrilling and liberating in a way to know that we know what we're going to get. It's a guaranteed cheque when we come and see you, that you're going to deliver? TOYAH: I do deliver because the audience comes first. I don't think I've gone beyond that point where I have nothing to prove. As an actress I've got everything to prove and I'm still learning. The new album is a beautiful album and it's so exclusively me that I want people to hear it and go “yes, Toyah's being Toyah” and that suits me down to the ground But there's always something to prove. Time moves on. Nothing is fixed. I think only your Hendrix and your Bowie and your John Lennons have that "nothing to prove" music that is their legacy. I'm not quite there yet. I'm trying my damnedest but I'm not quite there yet ALEX: I listened to this entire CD all the way through and there were two songs that stood out. It's so eclectic. One minute we've got these beautiful ballads and the next minute we've got you at your height where you're doing outrageous songs and playing the big ballad and the rock stuff “Heal Ourselves” and also “Sensational” - which is literally sensational. I don't think you've ever sounded better! Congratulations on this. It's so beautifully produced TOYAH: Thank you. I write with my co-partner Simon Darlow. I've been writing with him since I was 18 and he was 17. He's worked on many of my big albums as well. We have a very psychic relationship. Put us in a room and things just happen. He picks up a guitar, he hits the piano and we come up with something like “Sensational” in two minutes “Heal Ourselves” came about because at the time it was written we were really conscious about artist's responsibility towards being positive when the world is completely bloody crazy. We wanted to write something that really completely connected the artist to the audience so that became “Heal Ourselves"  

ALEX: You were ahead of your time, weren't you? You walked through the streets of Birmingham, people had never seen anything like it. Was that a divine intervention or was it you being you or was it influence? It's very easy to fit in the crowd but it's very difficult to deliberately stand out? TOYAH: At that time there was no social media, there were no mobile phones, no one could take pictures of me on the street so in a way that made it very easy to be a strange fish in a large pool. I was a hair model for a very big department store from the age of 14 because I had remarkable hair. Very quickly I started to dye my hair all colours under the rainbow and that gave me a very unique identity at the time I didn't know about punk rock in 1974/5. Then a friend said to me “you should really go and see the Sex Pistols” at Bogarts in Birmingham. I really thought up until that point I was the only punk in the village. I was in a room with 350 kids who were all dying their hair, all making their own clothes. I thought “where were you?! I'm been so lonely so many years! And here we all are – the tribe" It was a very lucky time for me. From about '75 into '76 right through to about '85 everything fell in my lap. It was to do with this being unique and being quite strange and not fitting in to the mould. I ended up working with Laurence Olivier, Katharine Hepburn, John Mills, Diana Dors. I had three platinum albums. It was just utterly remarkable ALEX: And what a great time to be alive and working. I don't know if we started today we would have the same stories. There are those type of legends around you can speak of and people take in a breath TOYAH: I think I would've found a way. If I was in the world today as a teenager I would've been on social media, I would've been on Youtube. I would've found a way. I was a pretty outrageous kid and I've always liked challenging taboos and there's still plenty of taboos to challenge. That's the biggest advice I give to anyone on Youtube. Look at the taboos and break them ALEX: What is it like being a woman in 2019? Where are we at now? It must be very difficult because we've got #MeToo and all of that. What would you have thought of that if that was around in the 60s? Does it help or not help? TOYAH: Oh! If we had #MeToo in the late 70s, which is when I kicked in ... oh boy! It was unbelievable being a woman in very much a man's world. Especially doing northern Working Men's Clubs, especially going even north of the border. I don't want to put these places down because they were great to play and the audiences were fantastic … but you were just groped. The whole time – left, right and centre. Just groped. I think there's even photographs out there where I'm being groped At the time there was no #MeToo, there was no voice for how you felt. What #MeToo has done is given vulnerable women a voice and to point out when these situations have happened. I have felt no need to take part in #MeToo because to be quite honest I just used my fists. There's a few men out there who would happily use #MeToo on me (Alex laughs) I just smashed them in the face I had no qualms about that at all. There are other singers who are renown for doing that too. Today I think it's rather a fantastic time for women because I think women can be sexually very open. They can have multiple partners if they want multiple partners. It was quite hard to do that 30-40 years ago They can be gay, they can be straight, they can choose their gender. I think that is all really healthy. What I would like to see is that that can happen without anyone batting an eyelid. Because really I think it's nobody's business what your sexuality is and what your gender is. I've always fought being seen as a person. I think that is on its way and that's a good thing    

ALEX: It is depressing in 2019 as I sit here shocked that men would just come and grope you. It's incredible to me as a 39 year old man. I can't imagine a world where that existed but that was the case Was that ever the case with the management, the record companies and the producers around you? Because even when you'd left the club you'd still have to face it? TOYAH: There's some extreme, very one off, on their own things that happened … My band really looked after me. I remember getting to Leeds, sometime in 1979, to a club and it was height of the fear of the Yorkshire Ripper. Firstly I arrived at this club and my wonderful lighting man said to me “do not stay here alone. The club owner thinks he has a right to sleep with you. Do not go anywhere – not even the ladies (room) - without one of us escorting you" So that was cool. This is what my band did – they looked after me. Then I tried to walk to the B&B and a police car picked me up and they said “you can't be alone” - because of the Yorkshire Ripper. My generation lived through that because no one knew who and what and where the next strike was going to happen As for the casting couch – one very remarkable one was - actually, I feel quite proud of - because this director was the legendary Russ Meyer of "Valley Of The Vixens".  I was actually sent to an audition for one of his films in the late '70s No idea what I was in for! I arrived at the audition and I was asked to take my top off. I just put two and two together and I said “this ain't for me” and I walked. But that happened in those days! It did happen. In a way I'm really glad I met Russ Meyer because that kind of “Boogie Nights” age of movie making is no more. And I was almost a part of it ALEX: How incredible. I wonder where you got that tenacity and confidence from? Was it your parents, was it your family? Where did you find that from within you? To stand up and walk out. Most people wouldn't be that brave … TOYAH: No, it was just no problem walking out on that one! ALEX: That's extraordinary. Some women may not have made that choice, which they could've regretted forever. You had that within you. I wonder where that comes from? TOYAH: Well, some women would've wanted that job. I just didn't want that job. It wasn't hard to walk out on that one. For me knowing that I was not tall, not particularly feminine and that I had to just be individualistic. I knew that was how I was going to survive. Which made me very bombastic and full of bravado I just knew I haven't got the feminine card to play. If I could go back into the heavens when I was being conceived and I could choose the body – believe me I would've chosen a supermodel body because I think they have an easier life. I got this body and I just decided that I had to be very tomboyish – which I am – but I knew that was my way of surviving ALEX: I don't think you can see you as the rest of the world sees you. You are a sex symbol. My father for instance (Toyah cracks up laughing) thinks you're delicious I don't know why you constantly in interviews always say that you were fat and ugly and not pretty as a child. You know you are now, right? What have you got to prove today? TOYAH: Back then I was three stone heavier. Today there is nothing wrong with that. Back then in the movie industry and the music industry … as soon as I signed on a label I had to loose that weigh. I was complicit. It was absolutely fine, I didn't mind at all I lost it when filming “Quadrophenia” because we were on so many amphetamines to get through that film! (they both laugh) All of us were popping pills like … aarrghh! It was a fabulous experience! But back then it was expected of you. I had a dietician, he weighed me weekly. I was weighed before I did Top Of The Pops I was complicit, it was absolutely fine. It was the every day and what you've got to remember is I had songs to write, I had scripts to learn, I had venues to get to. We were permanently in front of the cameras. On one day I could do a photo session, five interviews and a two and half hour show. It was just full on. The creativity meant more to me back then and there was no sense back then of eating clean, eating healthy. You were going to live for ever Everyone felt they were going to live for ever. If you told someone that you needed to eat clean to have longevity you'd go “nah, that's just rubbish”. We were just eating whatever we could get our hands on and it wasn't much in those days. Vegetarianism was a hard thing to follow in those days. I can remember getting to Manchester on a Sunday and finding nowhere to eat. You could just about get a bag of chips and that was it So those kind of things back then you didn't consider. All you considered was the speed and the competitiveness of getting an album finished, getting the best tour on the road and then starting all over again    

ALEX: You've achieved so much in your career. 24 albums and 40 shows you've appeared in, over 30 films. It's a remarkable legacy you're leaving for the world to enjoy Has it been fun? You've had one of the most blessed careers. You've always been in work, you've always been relevant and it's always been good stuff. That's the trickiest thing, isn't it? We can all work but is it good stuff? TOYAH: It's the only life I know. I couldn't be any other way and I don't feel I've actually arrived yet. I can only put this in perspective and this is a direct quote from Lulu on Radio 2. Someone asked her a similar question and she said “I'm hoping to be discovered” and that's what it feels like! (Alex laughs) I totally agree! I don't feel I've arrived yet. I'm not known as a film star. I have lovely cameo roles in films and I work in films. I also help co-produce and finance for films, which I love. I'm very passionate about all of that Funnily enough everyone knows who I am and I'm legendary … I only feel now, and about to turn 61, that I'm arriving. I think that's thanks to my writing partnership with Simon Darlow, because if “In The Court Of The Crimson Queen” was my swan song I am very happy with it There's songs on there I'm just so proud of like “Dance In The Hurricane”, “Heal Ourselves”, “Legacy”, “21st Century Super Sister”. I am really proud of those songs so I think I'm only arriving now. It's good because I'm not sure how long I can keep doing it for! ALEX: Are we going to sit down in another ten years at 71 and you're going to say the same thing? At what point are you going to give yourself a break and look down on your CV? There's a lot going on there, you must be at least proud even if you don't think you've arrived? TOYAH: I'm very proud of surviving (Alex laughs) I am definitely a survivor and I've survived with very little support. I've done virtually all of this myself with my musicians. I manage myself because I can't find a manager, I cant find a PA. No one wants the lifestyle I have! Let me put this in perspective. I'm in the office from 8 in the morning until about 4 in the afternoon, drive to the venue, do a gig, drive home, back in the office until 4 in the morning. That's the schedule. No one wants to be a part of that. I have to find people with an equal amount of insomnia that I have. It's hard but it's wonderful ALEX: People forget that you have to run a business to make it a show. That's what you've done all of your career. You've had to be the person fighting forwards because if not you're quickly forgotten TOYAH: Yeah, I agree with everything you've just said. Also I think a lot of artists don't realise that if you're not on top of the business side that's when problems come in. It's as easy as that. You just have to keep an eye on everything. I do admit that most business people are slightly scared of me because I pick things up very quickly (Alex laughs) “Excuse me, what's that in the contract? Excuse me!” ALEX: Are you less feisty now than you were in 1975 for example? TOYAH: I'm more intelligent than I was in 1975 – ALEX: More diplomatic you mean? (laughs) TOYAH: I don't fly off the handle as quickly as I used to and I'm really good at negotiating. I even have other agents and other artists phone me up and say “could you negotiate this?” And I go “c'mon! Grow a pair!” (Alex laughs) ALEX: It is a tough world to survive. Turning 60 … what did that mean to you? Was it personally thrilling that you made it to sixty (Toyah laughs) and you look the way you do? Did it matter to you professionally? TOYAH: Yeah. I tell you the biggest surprise – and it's been twelve months of surprises – on my 60th birthday my audience downloaded me to number one in the charts and that's what's kicked off all of this That led to Demon Music signing us on a contract, which is the first time I've been signed to a label in about 40 years. Then it led to adding the five new songs on “In The Court Of The Crimson Queen” and it's going at the speed of light! Sixty so far – and I've only got one month left being sixty – has been one of the best years of my life    

ALEX: I asked Ken Dodd if he'd ever retire when he was 89 and he said “well, what's the point? You only retire to stop doing what you don't want to do and I'm doing what I want to do" Are you doing what you want to do? TOYAH: Yes. I am doing what I want to do. Did you know that Ken Dodd had a clause in all his contracts that he couldn't go on beyond midnight? ALEX: Well, he never listened to it though. He paid the fine! TOYAH: He used to go on until six in the morning! (Alex laughs) That's more energy than I've got! ALEX: That old school ethic is inspiring. He wanted to put on a show and he wouldn't get off stage until he felt he'd done that TOYAH: It's absolutely remarkable – that dedication to his audience. They knew they were in for the night. I think they used to bring pillows and picnic hampers ALEX: It was great! Of all the people you've worked with – give me a couple that were a thrill for you? TOYAH: I've ran away from David Bowie twice because I just couldn't handle his presence. The first time was when he was appearing at the Milton Keynes Bowl. I think that was about 1983. Phil Daniels of “Quadrophenia” and I were backstage and we sneaked on stage. We were sitting on the runway going up to the stage. Bowie walked off stage and came and sat right next to us and Phil was going (mouths silently) and I was going “oh my God, oh my God!” (Alex laughs) and we ran! The next time was Bowie approached my husband Robert Fripp and I at an event at the hotel Intercontinental on Park Lane, about 1986. Bowie came up and asked Robert to join Tin Machine. I stood there and I just “... aaah ...” (looks lovesick) and just backed out of the room. I couldn't take it! His aura was so immense it went into yours! It was breathtaking ALEX: Have you put your finger on what that is? What do these people do that I don't do? TOYAH: I don't know but there's some very special people out there. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards are a little like that as well ALEX: Or is it just your mind putting onto them what your thinking about them? Are they doing anything? TOYAH: No, some people have incredible power. Laurence Olivier had that and Katharine Hepburn had that. Sting in a way has it but when we made “Quadrophenia” with him we were all in his hotel room learning the harmonies to “Roxanne”. He was incredibly encompassing, he was very kind good man But some people just have this aura that blows you away! I had to sit with Zack Efron for an interview once. Gorgeous boy! Absolutely gorgeous but I could just feel the aura pushing me out of the picture … (Alex laughs) ALEX: And then of course when we look back on all of the work you've done. Is there anything like that pin focus still? Can recording a CD compare with standing on stage performing it live? TOYAH: Every time I do a recording I expect it to be the best thing I've ever done. Every time I walk on stage I expect it to be the best show I've ever done. That has never changed. Recording a CD you always think about the connections it's going to create. Therefore you're thinking and hoping and expecting that that is going to connect you to a future. It's always been the same, its never been any different ALEX: You're a remarkable talent, you've got a stunning voice and audiences never cease to be amazed by you. I love the new album. “In The Court Of The Crimson Queen” is just wonderful and as I say “Sensational” is truly one of the greatest songs I've heard in a very long time. Your voice is so precious. Be less hard on yourself You seem to judge yourself more harshly than we do. We think you're delicious (Toyah laughs) and we think you're incredibly talented and we think you've done quite enough. Nothing to achieve, it's already great. Stop pushing! TOYAH: Ooh! I don't know about that. You have to push to a certain extent to do certain things. Especially to get in the big movies. You'd be amazed how hard you have to push to do that. I don't think I'll never give up hope on all of these ambitions ALEX: You're an inspiration, especially to young women. If you look at what you've done and how you've done it – against all the odds really … If you look at your background and your own perception of yourself. It's an extraordinary achievement. You know that, right? TOYAH: I am very conscious how important it is to give young women, and even just young people, a positive message. My generation did have it easy in comparison to today. We could buy houses, we could buy cars. I feel very very responsible and conscious of the fact that we have to give people hope That's a big message within “In The Court Of The Crimson Queen”, especially within “Sensational”. That the world is yours, it just needs to be slightly reorganised and you're going to be the people to do it ALEX: Shall we bother talking about Brexit? TOYAH: It's a mess that can't be solved! It just can't be solved! (Alex laughs) Whoever gets that chalice is going to be poisoned ALEX: If there is one woman who can sort it out it's you! TOYAH: I'm clueless! (Alex laughs) I don't know how they're going to do it - ALEX: What about a Prime Minister? You'd make a marvellous job ... TOYAH: No, I wouldn't. Really. I don't have that knowledge (Alex laughs) I'm not good at being criticised and having negativity thrown at you 24 hours a day - ALEX: You can't win either way at this point, can you? TOYAH: You can't win either way ALEX: Toyah, thank you so much for your time. You're such a legend and a star. Have a wonderful evening TOYAH: Thank you Alex, good to meet you You can watch the interview on Youtube HERE

[toyahinterviews]

BBC RADIO 2 WITH JASON MOHAMMAD 30.6.2019

JASON MOHAMMAD:  Good Morning! TOYAH: Hello! JASON: Fantastic to see you! It's going so well, you were in my home city of Cardiff, at the Acapela TOYAH: It was crammed to the rafters. It was 40 degrees in the venue. It was like performing in a sauna. It was fabulous (laughs) JASON: Did the Welsh crowd treat you well? TOYAH: Oh, they went absolutely bonkers! We're getting so many standing ovations. It was really gorgeous. At point, when it's so hot, I'm so thankful for them being there, for being awake! (laughs) JASON: Thank you so much for coming in to see us. You're going to play some live music with your band ... By the way, who have we got here this morning? TOYAH: We've got John Humphrey on percussions, Chris Wong on guitar and Andy Doble on keyboards JASON: Nice too see you. What's it like being back on the road and you've got a record out as well, Toyah? TOYAH: I've been on the road for 42 years (Jason laughs) But I suppose the present phenomena with me started in 2002. I was performing in a theatre in the West End and I got a fax saying “do you want to play Wembley Arena?” I thought it was a joke. It was one of these big 80s line-ups and I've never looked back Then slowly the dedicated Toyah following has been building up over the last ten years. My latest album “In The Court Of The Crimson Queen” went straight into the Top 10 two months ago. The first track we're going to play for you today is my next single off it. It's coming out on July the 17th. It has just been an absolutely stunning year - JASON: The single is “Dance In The Hurricane” - TOYAH: The year has gone crazy! It's just been fantastic JASON: You're on social media as well. There's dangers in it but people engage with you, Toyah -    

TOYAH: I am blind to negativity. I just don't bother with it. Life is so precious, time is so precious. Music is multi-generational and this is what I do. Accept it. We need to learn acceptance in a lot of how we go about our daily lives. So yes – I do do social media but the delete button is very active.   I just don't pick up negativity and we can talk about this in a minute. My mother was particularly negative and I've learned to survive and it's as simple as that. We are all gloriously miraculous just being here, floating on a rock in a very immense universe. No one's going to tell me I'm not good JASON: I heard someone say “don't be negative. Give yourself shot at the title”. I'm so going to use that every day - TOYAH: We're here for a purpose. No matter what you do - we're a part of a greater picture. I think negativity can just stop you. It stops you moving forward and believe me - I have my own battles with myself. It's very evident in my music. The best things come in life when you're positive and you see that the glass is half full rather than half empty It may sound glib and easy to say because we all have to fight our dark clouds but  I think that life is so precious. Especially when you get to my age. You just don't want to waste it!   JASON: Very true. You must get that positive energy from your crowds as well? TOYAH: For me the most rewarding part of my life is on stage where there is no mobile phones, there's no e-mail, there's no distraction. It's a very extraordinary experience which I'm grateful for You do feel moments where everyone in the room is one and it's like a phenomenal meditation. You can just feel their energy tuning in and I am so grateful for that! It's very powerful

JASON: What about this latest record then that you're going to play for us. Is it about something specific?  

TOYAH: “Dance In The Hurricane”, to be brutally honest, is about overcoming the grief of losing your parents. I lost my parents ten years ago and my life has never been the same. I'm still really only finding my feet but I believe grief makes us strong and “Dance In The Hurricane” is a song of victory over grief

JASON: OK, we'd love to hear it

(They play “Dance In The Hurricane”)

JASON: Toyah, that was absolutely magnificent! As a parent you've kind of touched me here. I was very emotional listening to that, especially the words “be loud, be heard, be proud”. Such a powerful message in that record -

TOYAH: We've got to tell our children that they inherit the world -

JASON: Absolutely! That's exactly it. The challenging world, go out there and be loud, be heard and be proud.

Are you going to do another record for us in a moment?

TOYAH: Definitely       

JASON: I just want to ask you about Glastonbury. Have you done it? TOYAH: We were guests with PRS (Stage). We played there about three years ago. It was magnificent. You arrive in this massive kind of city of people and you can feel it! It's very wonderful! And so upbeat! That might sound strange ... I'm scared of big crowds but everyone was so happy! JASON: It is that sort of vibe. Can I just ask you about about music as we get older ... I often have a conversations with my kids - “can we put something else on?” Am I getting old or is that something that happens when it comes to music? TOYAH: It's your experience talking. We've all got this mammoth library of experience in us and we've grown up with absolutely brilliant songwriters. The Beatles, The Stones, Led Zeppelin … I mean they're all utterly brilliant and these young people are going to discover that eventually. When I look out over the crowds that we play to at festivals the majority of the age is under 25  and they've just discovered us. They will discover the music you love     Personally I don't think there's such a thing as bad music. I think generations just need their voice and you can't take that voice away from them. That's the divide between you and your children JASON: Yeah. I took them to see Elton last week - TOYAH: Oh, I'm so jealous! I saw “Rocketman” last week, the music is so profound! JASON: They loved it and they got into “Rocketman”. There was a lad, about ten years old on his dad's shoulders. Elton is banging out “Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting” and this kid is singing the words back to Elton. That is just so powerful, isn't it, Toyah? TOYAH: That's storytelling writing, isn't it? The 80s was very similar that we told stories about the listener to draw the listener in. Elton's “Yellow Brick Road” about going back to the farm, going back to your roots … I found that so powerful because I only got a change to hear the lyrics sitting in a cinema watching the film. I was like oh, my goodness! Because we do in a sense return to our roots so many times JASON: And what about those musicians who criticise younger singer songwriters - no names being mentioned. Is that fair? Are some of them accurate? TOYAH: Well, the one musician you're mentioning is actually an incredible songwriter. I think if you are the best songwriter in the world you have the right to criticise. I'm still learning. I learn every day -  as a songwriter, as a human being I'm still learning and checking myself all the time. I've been writing music for 42 years and it's a journey without an end. I would not judge someone else's writing because it's the process of being creative that's important We have to remain a creative society. If we're too busy losing ourselves in our phones we're going to lose a cultural strength because we are all brilliant at expressing ourselves. We must be encouraged to go deep and express ourselves and that's what songwriting is If I was to criticise I would say go beyond the telephone and listen to Elton John, listen to Rolling Stones, because the depth of what they're saying is so truthful

JASON: Absolutely. Great advice. What are you going to play for us next? What's the significance of this next record?   TOYAH: This is a really important track to me. It's off “In The Court Of The Crimson Queen”. Simon Darlow, my co-writer and I wanted to submit it to the Paralympics partly because I've had to learn to walk again three times I was born with a spine defect so I know what's it's like to keep running up that hill and get back on your feet. We wrote “Sensational” because we felt it was important to write about that everyone is utterly remarkable. No matter what body shape, what height you are, where you come from ... We are sensational and this is what this song is about - JASON: Fabulous! Let's hear it. Thank you, Toyah (They play “Sensational”) JASON: Love it! Toyah live here on BBC Radio 2. Lot's of our listeners are getting in touch. This is lovely - from Sally, who says “I'm absolutely loving Toyah's music. We miss both of our parents very much indeed” ... but your words have provided comfort for them this morning - TOYAH: Yeah. I'm so sorry. It's the hardest grief. But you learn to live with void. That's the only way I can describe it. You're never quite the same again but something quite amazing happens with your life at that point and you move forward with strength JASON: Absolutely thrilled to have you in the studio today. Thank you so much for coming in to see us. The album is out as well? TOYAH: Oh yes, “In The Court Of The Crimson Queen” JASON: Fantastic. Thank you also to Chris, Andy and John, lovely to see you guys. Keep in touch, Toyah! And hopefully I'll catch you on tour sometime - TOYAH: Yay!

[toyahinterviews]

BBC RADIO SOLENT WITH ALEX DYKE 23.5.2019

ALEX: Hello, Toyah! TOYAH: How are you, Alex?   ALEX: I'm alright. How are you?     TOYAH: Really good, thank you   ALEX: You're at Theatre Royal Winchester on Sunday the 26th of May. 40 years in the business. You don't look old enough!   TOYAH: Well, I don't feel old enough (laughs) Life is very good at the moment so I feel exactly the same I did forty years ago   ALEX: This is the Greatest Hits you're doing on Sunday and some back catalogue. It's your full electric band and you're just celebrating 40 years of being in the business? TOYAH: It's inevitable it's going to be Greatest Hits because I've released in my career 28 albums and I've got to cherry-pick from this catalogue what we're going to be playing so virtually every song is a single I had a new album out in April called "In The Court Of The Crimson Queen", which is still doing incredibly well. It charted so we are going to be featuring that as well So my shows are fun, they're high energy and there's a little bit of storytelling. With the electric band our aim is to get the audience on their feet having a really lovely time, enjoying good rock music that they can dance to and usually they're singing along as well   ALEX: I've seen you loads of times and I know it's a great show. So it's forty years so that's 1979. I remember you first with the EP "Four From Toyah" with "It's A Mystery", which I guess was early '81. You were doing "Minder" and quite a lot of acting so what were you doing in '79 and 80' just before you broke through on Top Of The Pops?  

TOYAH: Whoo! (laughs) That is such a big question! I was filming with Katharine Hepburn in a film called "The Corn Is Green", which was directed by the legendary director George Cukor. I then went straight on to do "Quadrophenia", which is 40 years old this year    

So we're doing a lot of celebratory filming this year of that. I was also touring my band endlessly and in 78',79' and 80'. You had the first Indie Chart, which was available in The New Musical Express, the biggest music paper at the time. I was number one in those charts every week for two years even though I didn't have national success - the success that was going to come in '81 …   I was phenomenally successful on a kind of underground cult level. Filling venues, touring all the time, charting. I had an album out in 80' called "Blue Meaning", which went straight to number 2 in the album charts But back then you didn't get radio coverage if you were an album selling artist so I was enjoying wonderful success. It's probably one of the happiest times of my life because everything had a "Midas touch" to it – my acting and my music. I had no idea what was about to come in 1981. It was a lovely time of innocence and joy with everything doing really well     ALEX: I have to rewind there, just a couple of things I want to pick up on. First of all - I would imagine Katherine Hepburn was a lovely lady. Did you sit down, get down time, get Hollywood stories from her? TOYAH: Yes, she was a very generous person. Not only did I get down time with her, my father turned up on the film set unannounced! He was hiding on the set to watch his film idol Katharine Hepburn and she found him! She said "who are you and what are you doing here?" and he said "I'm Toyah's father". She stopped filming and took him to lunch!   She was just the most extraordinary woman. She would talk to me a lot about whoever I asked about. Her main influence and the big love of her life was Spencer Tracy. She wore his clothes every day and he had been long gone by 1979. But she would often just say "this is Spencer's jumper, this is Spencer's trousers" (laughs) and she was still very connected to him She was a very generous actress to work with. She allowed me close-ups, she would allow me to sit in her dressing room while her make-up was being done and we'd talk.   I worked with John Mills, I worked with Laurence Olivier. Even Diana Dors and they were all true stars. Today, as stars tend to be very real or reality based, these were people who were built by the Hollywood system and they were phenomenal. They were very different and I'm so glad I met them     ALEX: Well, I can't think many things cooler than hanging out with Katharine Hepburn being told one on one Spencer Tracy stories. And then Diana Dors! What did you work with her on?

TOYAH: I really have to pull this out of my my memory banks ... I did a lot of historical dramas for the BBC during this time. I did "Jekyll & Hyde" with David Hemmings (above) and I did an another one - which I can't for the life of me remember the name of! Diana Dors was, I think, in "Jekyll & Hyde" with me. She was great! Those days you'd have three months rehearsal for one of these drama series. When she came into the room she owned the room. It was “Hello, darlings! How are you?” Everyone was included, the conversation was loud and brash and the stories were legendary - kind of 1960's London But of course she worked and had a fling with Elvis Presley so she branched right across to Hollywood and back. Her stories were rich in this vein of 1960's rock culture. She was electrifying   ALEX: I could talk to you all day! Sunday, 26th of May, Theatre Royal Winchester, the 40th anniversary of the wonderful Toyah. You'll get just a great show with loads of costume changes and Toyah looking gorgeous and being fantastic! TOYAH: Can I tell you my Winchester story really quickly? ALEX: Yes! TOYAH: I did "Taming Of The Shrew" at Theatre Royal in August 1990. I was about to go on stage for the very last speech. It's a very big speech for "Kate" and the stage door, which is right at the back of the stage, opened and a fan grabbed me and pulled me onto the street for an autograph! (They both laugh) I was in shock! I didn't know what to do! Everyone was waiting on stage for me in the big banquet scene and I was going "oh gosh, help help!"   ALEX: Oh, no! But did you make it just in the nick of time? TOYAH: Yes, I ran back on stage looking incredulous and everyone thought I was delivering the speech in a different way! They thought "oh, she's going at this differently tonight". The look on my face was I've almost been shut out of the theatre! ALEX: Toyah, thank you so much and have a great night at the Theatre Royal Winchester Sunday night!     TOYAH: Thank you so much!

[toyahinterviews]

PHIL MARRIOTT MEETS 3.4.2019

PHIL MARRIOTT: Toyah Willcox! Fantastic to see you! TOYAH: Hey! Good to see you too! PHIL: How are you? TOYAH: I'm really good, thank you PHIL: Now, we've got the album, which you've just put on the table. I have to say gorgeous because of the colours of this … TOYAH: It's very crimson. It's “In The Court Of The Crimson Queen”. We started writing it ten years ago and we slowly drip-fed it to the fas as we toured constantly. The only way I can explain this, because if people know nothing about me … I was 60 on May the 18th last year and the fans downloaded me to number one in the charts. It was really quite extraordinary because I'm an unsigned artist So this meant that people suddenly pricked up their ears and went oh! And we got offered a recording contract and we said we want to make this “In The Court Of The Crimson Queen” how we originally wanted it to be but with a bit of a budget So we added drums, we added bass, remixed and remastered and we added five new tracks. This album has already had an extraordinary life. It was only available to the fans but virtually every track on the album has been in the musical version of “Crime And Punishment” - PHIL: Yeah, I saw that - TOYAH: Did you? PHIL: It was great - TOYAH: Oh, thank you. At the Scoop Theatre, London four years ago. And some of the tracks have been in movies. We've now had the chance, thanks to a record deal, to group it together, repackage it, so I'd say to anyone out there, who knows nothing about me - this is actually a sparkly new album PHIL: Yeah, because you've got a lot of new tracks on there as well TOYAH: Five new tracks - PHIL: Yeah. What I love about it though, particularly, it seems really current still, even though it was recorded over ten years ago. There's some tracks which seem almost like a reaction to what's going on politically in the UK and the US. There's “Hyperventilate”, “Heal Ourselves”, “Bad Man” - TOYAH: Well, we sat down to relisten to the album about six months ago and we thought this is not a bad album. It still, like you said, feels very current. Simon Darlow, my co-writer - and by the way Simon plays everything on the album – we thought this deserves a worldwide commercial release. Let's go with it, let's add some fairy dust and the new tracks and just treat it as a new release So because of the history of time to write and complete it, it is commenting on things that have been going on for many years. When we started writing this there was plenty of unrest  in the world, there's was plenty of things going on far away in other countries that none of us want to have happening “Heal Ourselves” was about community, sisterhood, brotherhood, sticking together, not allowing the media to make enemies of ourselves. Ironically “Bad Man” is about the fact we are so quick to label someone with the label of "bad man" rather than see why they behave in such a way or their circumstance or how they feel they have to act when they're in public. It actually says "I see though you, I see through you like glass. I see your heart" 

PHIL: You mentioned Simon Darlow, who your loyal fans will of course know from back in the 80s. You worked together with him on “Love Is The Law” 1983 and then again on "Minx" in '85

TOYAH: He said to me the other day – and I have no memory of this – I was the first person to sing “Slave To The Rhythm”. I was with him when he wrote it -

PHIL: Oh yes, because he co-wrote it -

TOYAH: Yeah, for Grace Jones. I have no memory of that at all that I was actually the singer he tested it out on

PHIL: Amazing! Do you find that a lot of your career in the 80s is a blur?

TOYAH: Everything's a blur now!

PHIL: It's kind of whizzed on so quickly -

TOYAH: The thing is I try to make today relevant. I think it's really important to be present and accept who and what you are in the present. So I think the reason the past is a blur is I'm always focusing on what I do today and seizing opportunities to do with the future so the past doesn't really get a look in that much

PHIL: You're not one to look back. You just want to concentrate on what's coming up?

TOYAH: Yeah, even when I do the big 80s festivals I try to give that in the moment. So if I'm doing “I Want To Be Free”, “Thunder In The Mountains”, “It's A Mystery”, “Good Morning Universe”, all those hits – I try to give them in a relevant way today

PHIL: Because we know you've touched on the anniversaries of your previous albums like “The Changeling”. You've got the 35th anniversary of "Minx" coming up -

TOYAH: Oh, really? Thank you

PHIL: In two years. It was '85 -

TOYAH: We're asking the record company to give that back to me at the moment. A lot record companies own stuff that they're not active with and we believe as artists it's our human right to ask for it back -

PHIL: Yeah - its your work, isn't it?

TOYAH: It's my work, it's my identity. So we are actually focusing on "Minx" and trying to get it back, which means I could do an awful lot with it  

PHIL: Oh my God, yeah. Because you've had a lot of problems with Safari Records. That was the label you were signed to right back in the 70s -

TOYAH: When you say problems, I think basically at the moment I'm being ghosted by them because I won't go away. It's just one of those things. It's a phenomenally successful back catalogue so I want to nurture it and mother it

PHIL: It's really your roots, isn't it?

TOYAH: It's my roots. I think “Sheep Farming In Barnet” is such an important album. “Blue Meaning” is a really important album. They're so original, they're so quirky and they still sound fresh. They really deserve their place with the younger generations

The beauty of YouTube and performing to such young people – to me anyone under 30 is really young – is that they're yet to discover this music and I think they're really going to like it. So I'm very active with all of that   

PHIL: And a lot of those songs are quite dark as well. I think a lot of young people would resonate with those songs -

TOYAH: They're wonderfully dark -

PHIL: How does it feel when you perform those old songs?

TOYAH: I love it!

PHIL: Do you get taken back when you were singing them the first time around?

TOYAH: Some of them are prophetic. When I'm singing “Neon Womb” my mother was still alive but when I wrote it I was aware of the future so there's little things like that. The same with “Race Through Space”

They're all about the grief before the grief actually was there in the world and it's a common theme in “In The Court Of The Crimson Queen”. It's how grief makes us better people. It makes us stronger, it makes our love stronger, makes our hearts stronger because you have to reach out further to find those you love. So for me that's a very powerful message

PHIL: And proving again that you always want to look forward as well. Seeing the future with your songs, with your songwriting -

TOYAH: I find that quite a romantic thing to do. For me the future is a bed of roses

PHIL: Because you've always written songs in the past maybe inspired your dreams. Is that still the case now or do you get your songs inspired by what's going on in the real life?

TOYAH: Yeah, sometimes I have really amazing dreams that are so tangible that I think that was not a dream, that was something else. That was a lesson. So I always take those particularly seriously

At the moment I'm dreaming a lot about tidal waves and they're in the most bizarre places. I live on the river Avon and I keep dreaming about tidal waves coming down the river Avon -

PHIL: Terrifying … TOYAH: Well, my husband says that it's actually being wrapped up in a spiritual experience. Water is our connected spirituality as mankind and I think that's a nice way to look at it. We do flood a lot there and when we flood it's very cold water so I'm kind of keeping the positive and the negative on equal balance. But to answer your question – I take dreams quite seriously because I've learned that sometimes they're telling you something that you need to be aware of PHIL: Dreams are a link to reality. It's bouncing back off reality … TOYAH: In some cultures dreams are believed to be the real work we do. I often wonder why on earth do we sleep so much of our lives … Well, go and ask some native Aboriginal in Australia. They'll tell you that's when you do your real work PHIL: I love sleep. I could go to sleep right now   

TOYAH: I hate sleep! I would do anything to pop a pill and never sleep again

PHIL: Do you still suffer from insomnia -  

TOYAH: It's terrible! People get so annoyed with me because I'm pinging out emails all hours of the night. I only achieve deep sleep between seven and ten in the morning  

PHIL: Is it the creative brain because you just want to keep producing?

TOYAH: I think those people that can use it creatively are very very lucky. Kate Bush, I think, does most of her creative writing through the night. I can't be that creative, I can be very functional. I can do all the mundane in the office but to sit down and write a song at 2 in the morning - that's not going to happen with me

PHIL: It's a very small world, Toyah, because the video for “Sensational”, one of the tracks on the album, is directed by Dean Stocking, who is

your photographer as well. He also works with Boy George and I seem to remember he was in your documentary -

TOYAH: Yes, at "Mayhem" (Toyah's warehouse/home in Battersea) Boy George very kindly tweeted the link to the video so he's been very supportive

PHIL: Do you see him much now?

TOYAH: We talk more than we see each other because Dean now works for Boy George full time. I get to hear a lot about what both of them are up to. I know Boy George wants to do an album with me – I'm not sure when we can fit it in.

He wants to write and produce it, which would be interesting from my point of view as a writer but I never say never and I think let's see what happens

PHIL: The reason I asked you that question was because I was at Battersea Dog's Home just the other day and that is very close to where you used to live -

TOYAH: I was across the road. They've knocked it down now -

PHIL: Oh, have they?

TOYAH: Yeah, "Mayhem's" gone -

PHIL: What a shame!

TOYAH: There was a petition to save it and give it a heritage plaque. But no, it's gone. I think it's flats now

PHIL: Because that features in the documentary. Is that something you've seen recently?

TOYAH: I  love that documentary. I'd love to own it, I could do a lot with that. It was shot and directed by Graham Moore. I am so grateful because that turned everything around for me. To have an hour long documentary on ITV on a Thursday night, 9 o'clock, prime time. It was phenomenal! Really all the angels were looking after me that day because it was all the music – and this was before “It's A Mystery” -

PHIL: I was going to say this was before you really became successful. You were successful then because you had a loyal fan base -

TOYAH: I was very cult. I was hugely successful as an actress and as a touring artist but I hadn't had nationwide hits. So that documentary – wow! Mind-blowing. You ask if I like it? I love it! (Phil laughs)

PHIL: It was fascinating to watch. I presume that new fans of yours that didn't know you back then or didn't have an insight as to how you started -     

TOYAH: They should watch it PHIL: Yeah! TOYAH: "Toyah! Toyah! Toyah!" (Watch the documentary (1980) HERE) PHIL: Have their minds blown how different in some ways but not in others. Still the same artist - TOYAH: It was a really good time. That was a good time for everyone. Everything was possible. I think life was easier for us young 'uns back then  and I think that documentary just caught me brilliantly PHIL: You are, what I think is safe to call, a juggernaut in so many ways. I've always thought from the late 70s to now you have this endless energy, a kind of effervescence that you can't control it - TOYAH: I can't control it - PHIL: You're bouncing all the over the place. How do you do it? TOYAH: I'd like to control it. I often think if I could just stand still on stage I might be a better artist. I just don't know where it comes from PHIL: You're doing over 30 shows this year - TOYAH: No, I think it's about 58 and it's going up and up and up because we've been doing lots of radio. Even last week a promoter contacted me during a live radio show and offered me a festival. The numbers – it's just tick, tick, tick, tick – going up. The energy – when I'm on stage I don't know where it comes from. I don't think I've ever gone on stage without that surge of something coming into me that I can't hold back PHIL: Do you know what it is? Can you identify what that surge is? TOYAH: I like to think it's something outside of me rather than a brain condition (laughs) PHIL: An other-worldly force - TOYAH: Yeah! I don't know whether it's my pituitary glands or what. I like to think it's an other-worldly force PHIL: I wanted to ask about identity because when you were young you resented femininity - TOYAH: I still do - PHIL: Being put in a box? TOYAH: I'm really uncomfortable with being identified as feminine. I always have been. I'm very tomboy, I definitely have a masculine soul. I believe in reincarnation and I'm absolutely certain that I was Attila The Hun or something like that in a past life. I'm so masculine and it's nothing to do with sexuality. It's just to do with attitude. I think all of us have the right to be our individual selves I was very aware from a very young age that I was being made to identify as something for the convenience of others. It's all to do with ticking boxes and filling forms and listing in bureaucracy. On your passport, male or female. I think we're all individuals We have a right to clarify what we need to excel and be our best. I personally believe that we are all here with nothing but potential in our bodies. Part of that potential is identifying, honing down, clarifying who and what you are. I'm so profoundly uncomfortable having to be feminine that it effects me - PHIL:  I know that you worked with some amazing people in “Jubilee”, the theatre show (below) - obviously based on the movie that you were in TOYAH: Oh, my God - I loved it!       

PHIL: This is the really exciting thing – the fact that you were playing Queen Elizabeth. You obviously didn't play that role the first time round, you played "Mad" in the movie. I found that a really good connection because it really freshened things up. It made the production really exiting TOYAH: It was very clever. Chris Goode was asked by the Manchester Royal Exchange "what would you like to do as a writer/director?" and he said "I want to bring the film “Jubilee” to the stage." The first script I read - and I don't think we veered far away from what I read first - was one of the most outrageous, funniest things I have ever had in my hand. It was just so gloriously naughty Chris came to see me to ask me to give advice to the cast. Gender fluid, some were gender neutral, some were transitioning. He said could I give them advice about what it was like to be a punk rocker back then, which was very much gender orientated. I said yeah, I'd happily do it and I said "can I be in it?" And he said "I wanted you to ask that!" (Phil laughs) So I just jumped on that. And what a glorious cast! PHIL: These are people that have such rich life experience. It was perfect for the role, wasn't it? TOYAH: It was brilliantly cast. Every single person in that play have a message. They're all activists, they're all sexual politics activists, they're all gender activists, they're political activists. Me being good 40 years older than most of them … I had to learn a new language I had to stop saying "c'mon guys, let's go for lunch." They were they, them, us, it. Words that I would've considered rude 40 years ago to address someone by. So I was continually having to learn to respect what they wanted. I was very happy to do that and at the same time I was going against 60 years of programming PHIL: So that was a challenge for you as well - TOYAH: Huge challenge! But one that I loved. I'm very grateful to have met these wonderful people who work very hard. They earn a lot less than I used to earn when I was their age. I really appreciated how they struggled and still had huge hearts and huge ambitions. I feel very passionately for them and their talent and that they get what they deserve in life and they deserve everything PHIL: And they've got Derek Jarman's outlook as well TOYAH: Yeah. That was very important because Derek - like most men of his persuasion back then ... he suffered a lot. He suffered a lot of physical violence and verbal violence and he had a really horrible death. Luckily people aren't dying quite like that from the AIDS virus now But for Derek it was so frightening. When he had HIV and then it developed into AIDS … He was getting death threats, he was getting people wanting to violently take his life as if AIDS wasn't violent enough. So it was a remarkable experience to be with these young people and to be able to share my story with them and them being able to share their present day story with me PHIL: You mentioned Kate Bush. You've always been a fan as have I. You were the first artist I ever saw live in 1982 - TOYAH: Wow!       

PHIL: It was the “Warrior Rock” show (above) at the Hammersmith – as it was then – The Odeon. Now The Apollo. Kate Bush played there a few years ago - TOYAH: How long ago was it? PHIL: I think it was 2014 - TOYAH: I know I went on the 11th of September. She invited me to come and see it   PHIL: What an incredible show TOYAH: Yeah. One of the best things I've ever seen. What I loved about it was you really felt nothing but love in the room. That was extraordinary. When she walked on in that almost sardonic pace she was just so relaxed! I mean I would run on! But she had everyone follow behind her. It was beautiful, the sound was incredible PHIL: I've got the hairs on the back of my neck up just remembering it. I was lucky enough to see it twice – TOYAH: Yeah, her voice was incredible   PHIL: The first time I was right by the stage and I couldn't walk afterwards. It was a really bizarre thing - TOYAH: Oh, wow! PHIL: I couldn't speak, I couldn't walk. I was just dumbfounded TOYAH: I was just very happy for her. I went backstage after to speak to her and to be with her for a bit. It's funny … the success of it didn't seemed to have touched her. She was just Kate and incredibly humble. I don't know if you know she used to bring Bertie (Kate's son) to my house before anyone knew Bertie existed. My father used to take them both out on his boat on the river Avon   PHIL: Oh, wow … I loved him in the show as well TOYAH:  He was great. He's a remarkable man - very intelligent, as you'd expect. I'm always blown away about how humble Kate is because she's a goddess! PHIL: That's what makes her more appealing as an artist, I think. There's no ego. Or I suppose you've got to have a certain amount of ego to - TOYAH: I don't think there is ego. I think she's incredibly clever like that. There's incredible knowledge, very hard work, but I don't think there's ego. But she is very protective of her work PHIL: Yeah. I know you're a big horror fan as well - TOYAH: Oh, huge horror fan! PHIL: I've just seen “Us” - which was quite disturbing TOYAH: I haven't seen that yet PHIL: Because a lot of modern films aren't as disturbing as they used to be TOYAH: You must see “The House That Jack Built”, directed by Lars Von Trier. It is genuinely shocking. Matt Dillon is mind-blowing, everyone is mind-blowing in it. What I love about it it's one of the first films I've seen other than “It” - which was enjoyably shocking – this, “The House That Jack Built” is breathtakingly disturbing PHIL: More psychological - TOYAH: It's very real PHIL: I seem to remember you came on (stage) as part of your tour to the music of "Suspiria"? TOYAH: Oh yeah, the goblins   PHIL: That got remade recently too. Did you see the remake? TOYAH: It's a parody? PHIL: It's quite different, it's a lot longer      

TOYAH: I think "Suspiria" is a classic. It works, it wasn't broken, don't mend it PHIL: So what was the last horror you saw? Was it “It” or “The House That Jack Built”? TOYAH: Oh no, I watch horror all the time. I think the remake “Halloween” was the last one - PHIL: Oh yeah, that was great. I was so buzzing about that because it's my favourite all time film - TOYAH: But again it didn't want to offend - PHIL: I think it was quite sanitized - TOYAH: The remake was very sanitized PHIL: Yeah. Are you still scared by stuff now when you watch - TOYAH: Yes. Anything to do with demonic possession I can't really watch. It's too suggestive for me PHIL: Yeah. I taps in, doesn't it? TOYAH: It taps in - PHIL: The psyche. Listen Toyah, it's been fantastic to see you. I wish you all the best with the album “In The Court Of The Crimson Queen” - TOYAH: Thank you PHIL: Gorgeous packaging. Gatefold 2 CD (above). Something for the fans TOYAH: And the vinyl is bright cerise pink PHIL: For Record Store Day. I think it brings back the excitement of buying music, doesn't it? TOYAH: Vinyl is saving the music business at the moment. It's the biggest seller. When we announced the vinyl I went straight to number one in the pre-order charts across the board so it just shows how popular vinyl is PHIL: There is air punching going on there ... TOYAH: Yeah PHIL: Good to see you Toyah, all the best TOYAH: Thank you so much PHIL: See you soon  

You can watch the interview on Youtube HERE

[toyahinterviews]

BBC RADIO TEES, SOUNDS WITH BOB FISHER 17.1.2019

BOB FISHER: Toyah is on the line with me. How are you? TOYAH: Hi Bob! I'm really well. I can't wait to be at the Arc (1.2.2019, Stockton-on-Tees) BOB: Excellent! This is the first date of tour as well, isn't it? TOYAH: Yes. What happens in my year is about mid-November I stop singing and have vocal rest. It's just a really wise thing to do. Not very many singers get a change to have that break. It's not that I haven't been working – I've been flat out! But I've just not been singing BOB: I noticed that you've been in the studio this week because I follow you on Twitter. What are you working on? TOYAH: On the 5th of April I have a new album out. The fans will be familiar with about 50% of it because we play them in the set. The album is called "In The Court Of The Crimson Queen"

So we've been in the studio writing new singles because there is a single due out. I'm  putting new tracks on this particular new album. I can't tell you too much because some of it is press embargoed but there's lots of exiting things happening for the fans. New images, new songs and we're very proud of it BOB: I have to say congratulations on Celebrity Mastermind as well TOYAH: It was a miracle that night, wasn't it? (laughs) BOB: (laughs) And you stormed it! Questions on Boudica. Is she something of a specialist subject of yours? TOYAH: A huge subject for me. There's a movie in the pipeline that I'm really hoping will go into production very soon. I've been studying Boudica for a long time. As a child I was fascinated by her and she is mainly myth. The only writings about her that can be taken as historical fact were 50 years after she actually lived The reason the papers were written in Rome was because Nero, who was the Emperor at that particular time, he was cross-dressing and historians wanted to write about a woman and in Rome a powerful woman was an insult

They created Boudica as this warrior queen as an insult to Nero. And for me that is just fascinating because she did exist. She was a warrior queen in a society were it didn't matter if you were a man or a woman. If you were willing to fight then you could be a leader Whereas in Rome women couldn't be leaders at the time. So there is a lot of myth and legend built up around her. When Queen Elizabeth came to the throne the comparisons started again and you started to get Boudica in plays and in essays and in critiques

BOB: I'm intrigued by the forthcoming film. Are you involved with it at all? TOYAH: I am but I can't tell you any more! She is a big love of mine!      

BOB: Intriguing! I will pick up on Queen Elizabeth because I know you did the stage version of Derek Jarman's "Jubilee" (above) last year -

TOYAH: I loved it!

BOB: I bet! I did see your performance compared to Judi Dench's Queen Elizabeth, which I thought was intriguing. Was that a deliberate homage?

TOYAH: I hope positively compared! (they both laugh) I played Queen Elizabeth in "Jubilee" and it opened in Manchester about 14 months ago and then in London Hammersmith exactly a year ago. I loved the opportunity to play this woman, because, again, Elizabeth was beyond anything we could call femininity. She was highly educated, which people don't tend to realise about queens of that era

She was phenomenally intelligent. She spoke many languages, politically astute, she was terribly barbaric! And very clever in passing the blame to the men. She would have people killed and then put the onus on someone around her or nearby. She was quite phenomenal

BOB: And Derek Jarman himself must've been a huge influence on you because obviously you were in the original film production of "Jubilee"?

TOYAH: Yeah. Derek cast me as "Mad", a pyromaniac in the film version and it's a very kind of ramshackle film but it's utterly brilliant. It proves that you don't need polished edges for something to be watchable. It's not for everyone. It's a punk movie and it's a very violent movie and the stage play was very violent. But it did ask questions that I think theatre can ask. It can push out boundaries that sometimes only theatre can do. So it translated brilliantly on to the stage

BOB: I saw you as a teenager and it was life changing. Derek Jarman's films proved to me that you can make a film that just stands there as a piece of art. It's almost impressionistic

TOYAH: Derek was a collage maker. As an artist, on canvas, he was an collage artist and with film he was collage. But also I think Derek was very anti the beginning – middle – and end development within film and terribly anti commercialism. So his work is stand alone work

BOB: Can I ask about another film from that era? I know that the tour you're doing this year is marking the 40th anniversary of your first record deal and your first releases on a major record label. And I think you were making "Quadrophenia" at the time you signed the deal. Is that right?

TOYAH: That's true. And "Quadrophenia" is 40 years old this year as well. Yes, my very first album "Sheep Farming In Barnet"  is 40 years young. Even if I say so myself it's an utterly extraordinary album. I love performing the songs of it. They are high energy original soundscapes. They're very vital and they're full of lust for life    

On stage today, I'm sixty now, I absolutely adore performing them. "Waiting", "Neon Womb", "Danced", "Race Through Space". They are incredible songs! And again they don't tend to have an beginning, middle and an end! They're Impressionistic

My show with the band is going to be high energy and it has been forever and it will continue that way. We don't really seem to be settling down as far as energy goes. I think that particular album is very special

BOB: I've seen you wax lyrical about your song "Pop Star" as well, as one that you particularly enjoy performing?      

TOYAH: We've replaced "Pop Star" in the set this year with a song called  "Martian Cowboy", which is beautiful! We've only started performing it live for the first time in about 30 years last autumn (both laugh) Everyone's hair just stands on end. It's absolutely gorgeous BOB: Do you perform anything from "Prostitute" in the live set? TOYAH: No, we don't. It's just me and Steve Sidelnyc, who then went on to programme all of Madonna's albums. There's not the context yet to do that but it's a very good question. I will look into it because I think that would take the fans by surprise BOB: It's such an extraordinary album, honestly. I was listening to it again for the first time in a little while - TOYAH: How was it? BOB: It sounded great! It really did! It's an incredibly experimental album and it's a fascinating album. What prompted it? Did just feel you had to do something very bold and very different? TOYAH: I always have to walk away from the job I've just done. That's creatively, idea wise. I just have to walk away. I feel trapped. Which is why my career is so varied. And I think "Prostitute" came after doing "Minx". That was a signing to Portrait CBS, where I was being told to be everyone but me. I was being told to be like Pat Benatar ... I've got nothing against that but I am me. I'm not trying to be another person. I'm not an imitator       So I remember I'd just got married and the only question I was being asked was when was I going to start a family? Which was never the reason I got married and certainly never the reason I'm here on this planet. So it was an album that really came out of anger. It's a very expressive piece. It's the most critically acclaimed album I've ever done. Billboard gave it five stars and then claimed it was an antidote to Madonna - BOB: I saw that, yes! (laughs) TOYAH: I didn't make it to make enemies, I just made it because I felt powerless. So it's widely considered even today as a piece of genius. I'm not being modest here because your listeners will know I'm not the most successful female artist in the world but I am a persistent tenacious person. It's really nice to have people referring back to past album as pieces of genius BOB: Do you still feel that anger sometimes? TOYAH: I feel angry all the time - BOB: Do you? TOYAH: Well, I just think we look at gender rather than the person and we always compare artists to someone else. I don't think any artist out there is trying to be an impersonator of an other person. So I always feel anger but I always feel driven and I try to use it

For me I'd rather use it creatively writing a song than on forty digits in a tweet. I think you have to explore these feelings and develop them and then share them. And sometimes the results change people's lives and that's very important to me BOB: Is it instantly cathartic for you as well then? Can you write a song and think “that's it, it's down on paper now so I feel better about it” TOYAH: No – success is cathartic! (they both laugh) I'm always having to prove myself. With the new album there's a new song going on ... We finished it yesterday, it's being mixed and mastered tomorrow. That was a wonderful feeling of writing something that you like and a lot of people in my world have heard this song and they're just going “wow!” So that is a nice feeling BOB: So the album will be out in April?     

TOYAH:  The 5th of April

BOB: Fantastic. And the title "In The Court Of The Crimson Queen" is a little tip to one of your husband Robert Fripp's past incarnations. Did he offer a dry smile when the title was offered to him? TOYAH: There is a big surprise on the album - BOB: Is there? You're not going to tell me though, are you? TOYAH: He opens the album BOB: Oh, fantastic! TOYAH: And he's not wearing a guitar - BOB: (laughs) Rather like a prostitute! TOYAH: That's it. It's exactly that kind of part BOB: Excellent! It's been a pleasure to speak to you, Toyah. Thank you for doing this TOYAH: Thank you! And I can't wait to be at the Arc!

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TOYAH ON ITV THIS MORNING WITH PHILIP SCHOFIELD AND HOLLY WILLOUGHBY 8.11.2021

PHILLIP: She first burst onto the music scene in the 80's. But 40 years on Toyah Willcox is going from punk princess to cabaret queen HOLLY: She'll be treating fans to a spectacular evening of music, burlesque artists and award winning acrobats as she hits the stage at Proud Embankment PHILLIP: Here to us all about it is Toyah and it's always lovely to see you HOLLY: It’s lovely to see you TOYAH: Good morning! PHILLIP: So this is Cabaret All Stars, tickets available now. Part of the Proud Embankment, that's their latest show. And you say that this is tasteful but pushes the boundaries? 

TOYAH: It's very glamorous, it is certainly exotic and erotic. Very young performers, very beautiful boys and girls and so highly qualified at what they do. Trained by Cirque du Soleil, trained in Vegas, all from around the world. And they are defying gravity, defying death in some cases. Some of the acts are so breathtakingly dangerous, but brilliantly done. I would say that the evening is definitely for 18 upwards. But I have not seen anything that I would not want my parents to see if they were around because it's a very friendly venue.     You walk in, it's a beautiful venue, you have a three course meal. You are looked after, the moment you get in, by really gorgeous young girls and fabulous waiters. And the performers is so funny. What they do is so empowering to women.

So you have women with fags in their mouth setting fire to the men. It’s like that, it's so empowering and you come away thinking they've made an incredible social comment about stereotypes. You have your wonderful drag performers, you have kind of gender fluid performers. Everything makes a very beautiful comment about today without preaching, and with great humour and incredible talent.   

PHILLIP: Well, you’ve sold it to me!

TOYAH: And then you get an old bag like me     HOLLY: Oh, stop that! TOYAH: Singing the hits PHILLIP: So your role is what? TOYAH: I'm the MC and because I have a history of dressing up and I also have recent history of undressing on my social media. I'm very much in capturing that. I come out like the the battle ready hard Queen of Rock, kind of waving the flag.

I mean 42 years ago when I had pink hair I couldn't get a bus or a taxi and people were always trying to arrest me. And here I am in a room full of incredibly beautiful young people, hair all colours, covered in tattoos, and they're free to do that today. I find that incredibly emotional. HOLLY: I bet you do and also for you who is touring constantly, but on your own, solo up there on stage, then be sharing the stage with all these people. It must just feel like a different experience? TOYAH: It's a very different experience. There's one song I do “I Want To Be Free” with an amazing aerial artist called Katrina and I'm lying on the stage (below) looking up at her. And every time I've performed this song with her, I'm in tears, because she is such an extraordinary performer. She can do things with her body that you think would just break her.   

It's beautiful, it's balletic, breathtaking and I do lie there thinking this couldn't have happened when I started in the business. A woman could not have done this. And it's a glorious, glorious feeling. And yes, I am on tour. I went straight from Proud Cabaret on Thursday to play two shows with my band in Halifax and to be back - HOLLY: I bet that feels good TOYAH: Everything is just like embracing everyone and not wanting to let them go. And at the end of my band show on both shows in Halifax, the audience started to hold each other and slow dance with each other. And it's like this incredible celebration of being back. HOLLY: Yeah, the audience needed it as much as you getting back out there performing, I imagine 

TOYAH: Absolutely. Well, performers have to perform - which is why I ended up forming Toyah YouTube channel with my husband. We didn't think it would go viral and that Alice Cooper would be watching and Matt Damon and ZZ Top. PHILLIP: It was massive! TOYAH: It was massive. PHILLIP: And bonkers!

TOYAH: It’s absolutely bonkers. It's had 40 million people pass through to watch what we do. HOLLY: We're just watching some of – (video of Toyah and Robert plays) TOYAH: Oh, you found one that you could show. That is the very first one we did. When we posted that within five minutes we were getting messages from Australia, from the Philippines, from Hong Kong. People saying thank you - PHILIP: We should say your husband, Robert - he's one of the world's foremost guitarists and of King Crimson, isn't it? He's an amazing musician and world renowned and there you are, and you say that you started doing that keep him occupied?

TOYAH: To keep him moving. As soon as lockdown started he disappeared into his office and was only coming out to eat and I thought we've got months of this. He's not going to be well. So I started to teach him to dance.

And I posted us jiving and it instantly went viral within an hour. And he got very interested in this and the messages that were coming back with “thank you. I'm alone in an apartment. I'm so miserable. And you’re cheering me up” - PHILLIP: Well, there's one clip we can’t show. You're performing Metallica's “Enter Sandman” and you've got an see through top on on an exercise bike. We can't show it!

TOYAH: 40 million views …  (they all laugh)

HOLLY: Did you realise it was going to have such an effect on people because you can see … everything 

TOYAH: I know! I'm an actress so I don't I care about it. When you're on theatre you have to get changed in the wings. If you don't get a dressing room at a gig you just take everything off and say hard luck. If you don't get me a dressing room this is what you get! (Philip laughs) So I'm used to that.  

What I didn't realise is when Alice Cooper sent a message, saying that it made him laugh his socks off and then Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin texted me and said that he was laughing his socks off. And then you start seeing people copying what you do.

I shaved my husband's hair before he went on tour to turn him into a road warrior. So I said my husband's going on tour. I need him to leave the house as a road warrior. Then Robbie Williams did, Matt Damon did it. Everyone was doing it! PHILLIP: Who would’ve thought. I just love those things that came out of - HOLLY: Well done - PHILLIP: Just brilliant. Right then, tickets for Cabaret All Stars are available now. Sounds like a hell of a night. TOYAH: It's a big hug and it's phenomenal. It’s Vegas in London. PHILLIP: Beautiful. Thank you.

HOLLY: Thank you very much. 

You can watch the interview here https://youtu.be/UIknjifiWIQ

[toyahinterviews]

METRO, 60 SECONDS 2.11.2021