#toyahinterview

[toyahinterviews]

TOYAH ON TISWAS ATV 26.9.1981

HOST SALLY JAMES: Hello and welcome to Toyah. I'm glad we're going right in close on you (on the camera). Incredible makeup you're wearing TOYAH: Oh yes, it's my cement for today SALLY: You look very different actually in the video earlier, from the new single (“Thunder In The Mountains”) TOYAH: Yes, it's based in the future. I took the ideas from sort of Aztec combined with Boadicea (Boudica). The big hair, doing everything with the bow and arrow and all that rubbish SALLY: How did you get your hair completely to stick out like that? Was it sort of five cans of hair lacquer? TOYAH: I had great big wig. I have my real hair underneath and an enormous wig on the back. It looked like a flying saucer had landed on the head in certain places, and that's how we did it. It was just sprayed solid with lacquer so when I was on the chariot it wouldn't blow off. It was great SALLY: Where you get these ideas from? TOYAH: The chariot idea came from the people who made the video. Kevin Godley and Lol Creme from 10CC who I always make videos with because they're two great guys SALLY: Yeah, it looked amazing. (I was ) just mentioning about your makeup. You've got your own makeup?

TOYAH: The makeup range is the cheapest range on the market. I aimed it purely for teenagers to play with. It's an experiment because I want to bring out things such as stick on tattoos and body paints and things like that. It's purely fun

SALLY: All sort of gold and things?

TOYAH: Oh, yes, but I'm not a designer or anything like that SALLY: It's just an experiment?

TOYAH: It's another branch out

SALLY: A fan of yours - his name is Gary Price - sent in a photo. Can we have a look at this. He's actually had the front of his car -

TOYAH: Oh God, yes! He turned up at Hammersmith Odeon

SALLY: He painted (the bonnet) with you Toyah. I think that's incredible, don't you?

TOYAH: He's mad. He's a great painter, though

SALLY: So talking of a fan like that - it must be quite impossible for you to go out anywhere and not be mobbed, looking the way that you do. It's not as if you can slope around - TOYAH: It's usually parents that mob me. “Oh, you're Toyah arent you? My little daughter wants your autograph” and the daughter is nowhere to be seen. It's wonderful. I really enjoy it

Anyone who's watching who lives on my road - the doorbell is disconnected (blows a raspberry to the camera). That's the main problem, the doorbell where I live. But we disconnect it

SALLY: Do you ever try and disguise yourself so you can slope out and do anything? TOYAH: Yeah, I wear a wig sometimes

SALLY: You do? Does it work? Or do people still find you?

TOYAH: No, they go “oh, you've got a wig on?” and then they get close and “oh, you're Toyah, aren't you?!”

SALLY: It creates even more attention?

TOYAH: Put it this way, it's very flattering. I really don't mind

SALLY: What about visiting other countries? TOYAH: We go away to Europe in November. We'll be back for Christmas with a special mini tour where we end up, on the 23rd of December, doing a charity show for under 16's at Drury Lane theatre

Then on 24th we're doing a live show which is televised nationwide by the Beep (the BBC) on the night (below). So if anyone can't get tickets that hopefully makes up for it SALLY: So you're doing a special show for under 16's. You're doing this earlier in the day, so the under 16's can come?

TOYAH: Yes, it will be around six o'clock

SALLY: That's a good idea

TOYAH: It's to practice the set and everything

SALLY: So many kids -

TOYAH: They don't get in SALLY: They can't go when it's at eight o'clock at night. I know you brought along the personal garment

TOYAH: (puts on a funny accent) Yeah, it was in the video but I don't think you actually see it. It's a sort of studded thing that you wear around your neck. I thought some nice little gremlin might want it SALLY: I'm sure they would. Have you had a chance to think of a question? I know I should have asked you this about an hour ago

TOYAH: Oh, my God! (laughs)

SALLY: Can we quickly rustle up a question TOYAH: What's my middle name?

SALLY: What's Toyah's middle name to win this. Entries to our usual address. Tiswas, ATV Land, Birmingham B1 2JP

Watch the interview HERE

Watch Toyah singing "I'm A Misery" and getting hit with cream pies during the same show HERE

[toyahinterviews]

TOYAH ON BBC BREAKFAST TIME WITH SMIKE SMITH SEPTEMBER 1983

MIKE SMITH: Toyah's got a new single coming out this week (“Rebel Run”) and an album and a tour and all these things. Number one single at the moment is (Culture Club) “Karma Chameleon” -

TOYAH: (surprised) It's still number one?

MIKE: Yeah, but you're the chameleon. I mean, you just keep changing all these different jobs and things that you do

TOYAH: I think it's important to keep changing. I think once you get set in your way, especially within the entertainment business, people tend to forget you

It's not only that, when I wake up in the morning and I look in the mirror … hey, ugh, enough of that one. I change it. I like to wake up and shock myself

MIKE: What was this steamy scene with Sir Lawrence Olivier? (in the film “The Ebony Tower”)

TOYAH: (annoyed) There's no steamy scenes. I mean, John Fowles', “The Ebony Tower” the book is very steamy. In fact, when I read the book, I really didn't want to be involved with the film

But the script is very different, and it's all about mind games between four different people. And there's nothing much to see, as far as The Sun's concerned, or any of those tabloids. It's actually going to be a very beautiful, very artistic film

MIKE: But there were stories going around that you were doing a nude scene with Sir Lawrence -

TOYAH: There's hundreds of stories going around. Let the stories happen. I'm afraid people will be very disappointed if that's all they're going to watch the film for. I like to think they're going to see some really good acting, because it was an excellent cast

MIKE: You're 25 now - you've achieved so much in the past ten years -

TOYAH: (laughs) 25!

MIKE: Why are you laughing at that?

TOYAH: (laughs) I feel 16!

MIKE: (laughs) But you started in Birmingham all those years ago. Did you set out to be a punk?

TOYAH: Oh, gosh, no! When I was a teenager I was madly in love with anything to do with science fiction, and suddenly this picture evolved called “The Rocky Horror Picture Show”. I saw pictures of Little Nell and Tim Curry. I remember it's the most beautiful thing I ever saw

That encouraged me to dye my hair, much for my mother's dismay. I turned up at home one day with my head shaved at the back - it was long in front, and one side was pink and the other side was blue

I'd say this was about two years before punk happened because I remember two years later - and many colors later - I was still at school and I going to see the Sex Pistols play at a club called Bogart's in Birmingham

I suddenly walked into this club, and I was among hundreds of people that had the same emotions as me and looked similar to me, even though we were all very individualistic. I suddenly felt at home. This was the big movement called punk

MIKE: From little punks great actresses do grow, eh?

TOYAH: Sometimes

MIKE: Something like that. I don't know whether we'll get another chance to talk to you before nine o'clock, because time is tramping on Thank you for coming in this morning and for being a part of the show. You've been sitting here bouncing up and down, like a Jack In The Box (a toy)

TOYAH: I'll go cycling when I get back (home) MIKE: You just can't keep still, can you?

TOYAH: I find it very difficult

MIKE: Right, you keep bouncing away

Watch the interview HERE

[toyahinterviews]

TOYAH TALKS LOVE IS THE LAW IN 2024

From the DVD of the Love Is Law reissue 2024

TOYAH: 1983, at the beginning of the idea of recording, at the very, very beginning, I felt very strongly that I wanted a writing process that represented the writing process we had with “Sheep Farming In Barnet” and “Blue Meaning” where we were left alone as creative artists and musicians to just write and see what would happen. So the best way we felt to do this was to move everybody into my house

I had a room that was really a dining room, but had been converted into a gym. We moved an entire studio into the gym. Simon Darlow, who I have known since I was 18, and he was 17, moved into the house with us. Joel Bogen (guitar) lived about 500 yards down the road, so he could get to me very quickly

We decided that we would start writing every day from 10 am. I was taking on a play at that time called "Trafford Tanzi" (below), but once that opened I didn't leave the house till 4.30. I finished the play around 11 pm and a car would take me to the Marquee Studios, and we'd work through the night. Now this may sound exhausting, but it was actually exhilarating. Absolutely exhilarating. To add Simon Darlow into the writing process took attention away from me and Joel. Joel always wanted something to go one way and I was always pushing in another

It wasn't that we were completely polarized, because we were great friends, but “The Changeling” was very challenging in that I felt I was edged out of it in under certain circumstances. That was mainly because Steve Lillywhite, who's a very good man and a brilliant producer, I don't think understands women So I didn't ever want to be in that situation again where I felt like an outsider on my own project. So by moving everyone into my house I was incredibly happy. It was breathtakingly spontaneous, creative. We just could not record the ideas quick enough. Having Simon Darlow there, who was a remarkable catalyst, having him back in my life, because he did some keyboard work on “The Changeling” and the moment he walked into the studio, it's like, “thank fuck! It's like my brother has come home!” He instantly bought me back into the fold. Having him in our house, we would actually get up early and write a song like “Haunted”. I've been working with Simon Darlow recently, and he said “you do know we wrote that at about six in the morning in your office?” and I had no memory of that. Because he was always there, and he was always with me, and he was a really supportive friend It meant if I said something like, “oh gosh, I feel haunted by this”. He said, “That's a song! It's a song” Let's do it!” Got the keyboard out and we'd start jamming. He made everything possible for this album with his enthusiasm. He hadn't been touched in any way or tainted by how outsiders can influence a process negatively. He was just like a puppy with a new toy. He was full of energy, and it really, really helped me and Joel a lot "Trafford Tanzi" was a media hit. It was a massive critical hit for me, and slightly highlighted by the fact that on Broadway Debbie Harry opened it the same week, and the critics on Broadway virtually closed it within a week. In Japan a version opened and the critics virtually shut it down within a week there. But our version - it's about an English, northern couple who sought their wedding problems out in the wrestling ring. So it was quintessentially an English, British project and I think that's why it worked

The music was great. It was a musical. It was completely sold out for the entire run, and it saved the Mermaid Theatre. It invigorated me. I think part of it, as the artist I am, is I needed to move between genres to find out my voice at that time, and it invigorated me to have a lot of personal freedom at that time. I traveled without security. I didn't have security at the theatre It was a remarkable event that for five months it became a campsite outside the Mermaid Theatre with up to 130 to 300 fans sleeping rough outside the theatre. There was a tunnel, a road tunnel, that went along beside the theatre that was graffitied so often I had to pay for it to be painted twice The fans were fantastic, and a lot of them became couples and it was a very lovely experience. So when I arrived, there was a crowd waiting for me, and I stayed and I talked with them as much as I could, probably half an hour to an hour each time. In the interval, I would go out and talk to them. You've got to bear in mind there's always been a process with me if you don't schedule a an eating I don't eat. So I used to go out with my cup of Complan, which is a meal supplement in the interval, and have my Complan while talking to them I found it very, very grounding. It tuned me in to who and what they were and their mental frailties, as well as their joys and how they saw me and what I gave to them. Because you can get so isolated as an artist and you can get disillusioned or illusional about things. You just get the wrong impression. To be with them helped me become more grounded and bit more street level as well That's really important, I think, to get your ideas from the street rather than from the latest wonderful dinner at the Grosvenor Hotel. It's much more important. Eventually, when we started moving to the Marquee to record, they followed. It was a small group that followed. The Marquee was down a very narrow driveway, and they couldn't fit 300 tents in, but some followed. That was a very nice experience too, because we could play them stuff on "Love Is The Law". We called about 21 of them in and said “you’re going to sing the chorus now” I remember they all went from being really cocky, sure of themselves people into quiet as mice, slightly terrified, not understanding the process. We were lovely with them, and (the producer) Nick Tauber was fabulous with them. They were just standing at the mics like rabbits in the headlight. But we got it and all we needed them to do was chant “love is the law”and they did it brilliantly. It's just so lovely that they are there, on that recording With this huge encampment outside the theatre they started to call themselves The Angels and Demons, which gave them their identity. It showed that they were there for a purpose, and there was a purpose in what they did every day. So The Angels and Demons came into the world at that point

The most collaborative I have ever experienced with the band was in the very beginning when Pete Bush, Joel Bogen and I would meet every Sunday and we'd write. Then when we got signed we were given time in a rehearsal studio to write. We were writing for months on end and occasionally going out and doing a series of gigs. For "The Blue Meaning" we had to do some of the writing in Battle, Hastings while we were recording. "IEYA" had only ever been an encore improvisation up until the point we went into the studio to record "The Blue Meaning" So there was a long writing and recording process actually in the studio, which for me doesn't help. You get so pressurized and the anxiety - you're in overload. Then with "Anthem", by some magical alchemy, the band was sending me backing tracks of the songs that they'd written together with no vocals on. The alchemy was just extraordinary. I think that's partly because of the musicality of Phil Spalding (bass), Nigel Glockler (drums), obviously Joel and Adrian Lee (keyboards). You had a group of phenomenal composers all in the same room I was writing lyrics, the top lines in the morning and recording it in the afternoon, without fail, on an entire album. I think I did it all in two weeks. On "The Changeling" the collaboration became very fractured, and I'm not sure why. It shouldn't have become fractured. I think part of it was that Joel and Phil Spalding wanted to separate themselves from Toyah the star. That point the band were being held apart from me, and it started to show. But I think the tension has worked really well in that end product. What I wanted to go back to was the sheer improvisational joy of being in a room with musicians who all have experience of songwriting An example of this is "I Explode", which for me, is a really fucking great song. It captures everything I needed and wanted to experience as a very physical singer. I think it came from Joel creating a riff, and then Simon Darlow adding a sequencer and doing something complimentary to Joel's riff. It was so exciting. It was like an unstoppable train. I wanted to create this image, which really comes from Aleister Crowley (and English occultist) creating the myth that exploded his son through a magical spell. This was during the time of the Hellfire Club, where everyone was experimenting with the spirit side of life and with the occult and all of that I wanted to express how I felt as a dyslexic when I can't express myself properly because you get blockages in your processes. You feel as if you're just going to explode because you know it's alive in there and you can't transfer it into the outside world. I was marrying that to the imagery of a human combustion. This song is just breathtaking! To perform it live is like a possession. I absolutely love it! This is why that collaborative process was so magical on “Love Is The Law” because we never once sat there with writer's block. The three people who easily could have been polarized suddenly clicked, and it was really exciting. And then we brought Nick Tauber in, and Tauber has always been the right person for us, other than Steve James, who moved to Australia Nick produced "Sheep Farming In Barnet" and "The Blue Meaning". Tauber has always been perfect. He kept us together as friends, never judged, never caused friction, made every idea we suggested possible. He was open. He just understood us and he didn't block us if he didn't understand something we were trying to do. He explored it

I think one of the funniest experiences is he had to bring me down to earth every time I arrived after the theatre performance, because I would be revving at 190% until about four in the morning because of this incredible stage show. I think he asked me to take a sleeping pill before I did either “Martian Cowboy” or “Rebel Of Love”. He needed to bring me down so I took the sleeping pill and it just made me normal (laughs) so that I could just give a relaxed performance I love writing via improvisation. Even today Simon Darlow and I improvise for about two days and then take the songs from sections of the improvisation. It's a really beautiful way of using the truth of who you are, rather than reflecting influence from others. It's the way I find my voice. Before we went into the Marquee Studios we needed about 10 demos, so I would get home after the theatre - it would take about an hour and a half to get to North London in those days. It was a very bad journey Simon Darlow would be ready for me, and I'd eat, and then we'd go into the studio. I can't remember drinking, but perhaps I did. I was never really a very heavy drinker, from about 1976 to about 1980 I probably did drink a lot to try and bring me down. To just get me down to a human level, because I'm really ramped all the time, naturally I just don't know what I would have drunk. It might have been Bacardi and Coke or something like that. That is something I genuinely can't remember. They tried me with the wacky backy (weed) and I'd just fall asleep. So that didn't do its job. But I always felt very safe with Simon. Simon and I have a kind of old soul past life connection. I always feel in his company that he's never judging me. He never ever comments on my inability to play a musical instrument while he's playing even though on "Posh Pop" I could play guitar with him. He always just listened and appreciated the ideas I came out with and he loves what I do as a lyricist. So there's not only a bond, there is a very special trust and we probably worked right through the night It was a geographical choice as well of having wonderful memories of the Marquee Studios because parts of "Sheep Farming In Barnet" and parts of "The Blue Meanin" were finished there and we did the whole "Anthem" there. So I felt very at home at those studios. It was like going home. Geographically it was close to the Mermaid Theatre as well, and it worked for the whole band Our decision to go with Nick Tauber was that he's incredibly easy to work with. He made us feel like a band. He didn't play games with any of the members of the band. There's no hierarchy. There's none of that going on. He's a great communicator with the record label and with management. So he was a good peace keeper. He had lovely ideas as well. Sometimes he’d put about seven mics around me to get a different ambient feel. He always got the sound in my cans (headphones) that I needed to hear. He understood that I've always had great difficulty singing with anything covering my ears So he'd even set up a speaker in the sound booth so I didn't have to wear headphones. Or he would create an ambient track that gave me the feeling of being in an open room and that way I could use my vocal cords better. He just knew and I didn't have to explain anything. I didn't have to get frustrated. He just knew, and he did it

Without a shadow of a doubt running "Trafford Tanzi" next to the writing and recording of "Love Is The Law" is the happiest time in my life. It was just breathtaking. Everything was how I wanted it to be in that I wanted, and still do,  to be an actress and a singer. I don't want to do musicals. I don't want to be in the West End doing a musical eight times a week. I don't have that stamina But what happened with "Traffod Tanzi", ironically, which was like running a marathon every day, the separation created something in me that just made me ultra creative. I think it's that thing of the fans outside and the extraordinary audiences in the theatre. The whole world came to see this production. I remember looking out and there was Tom Baker, one of the Doctor Who's. Or looking out and seeing … was that Prince or was that Bowie? Everyone was in that audience, and it made me feel accepted as someone in showbiz, rather than someone that was an oddball that was tolerated. It was my moment because that play really suited me. So by the time I went to the studio I was a fully rounded, confident artist. Psychologically that's down to "Trafford Tanzi" and psychologically down to the support of Simon Darlow and Joel Bogen at that time Simon Darlow added a lot of sound presence on the album, and it's something that we all wanted, probably especially me. We wanted the album to sound futuristic. It was at the height of synthesizer development. You had Pet Shop Boys coming into the equation. You had Human League evolving into the Phil Oakey version. Then you had Heaven 17 coming in. This was the era of the synthesizer and I really wanted something that was cinematic So with "Dreamscape", where you have this opening where the sound is traveling and panning across the stereo - the whole idea is this massive machine is arriving and then out of this machine comes a different form of human being. A differently evolved human being, and we referred to it openly back then as fairy tribes - but not fairies as in Enid Blyton – fairies as in warriors with weapons that fought each other and didn't like he elves. So it was bit more like that What inspired me to explore love on "Love Is The Law" I think is that it’s something I have never, ever explored. I've been totally unwilling to explore (it). It's been something up until that point that had been quite evasive in my life. What I mean by that is that there was love, and people possibly loved me, but I couldn't experience or feel it. That's probably because of my background and my childhood

Really interesting around this time - the fans gave me so much and to see what I meant to them and their lives helped me understand relationships and understand that people were seeing in me the dislocation they felt in their social circumstances. I think there's an awful lot of people out there, even today, who feel they don't belong. They feel dislocated from life. They don't fit into the patterns we're told we should fit into. Being with the fans in that way outside the theatre every single day for four months I think just taught me so much

Simon Darlow was very kind and he loved women, he just saw women and just adored them. It's probably been a problem in his life but he just loved women. I think I came to a better understanding with myself during this time and was becoming more independent. The whole event changed me radically

Then immediately after, I went away and did "The Ebony Tower" with Sir Lawrence Olivier, which was all about nudity and sex. It's as if this period of doing "Trafford Tanzi", being with the fans, and making the album was teaching me enough to go into "Ebony Tower" and shoot what needed to be shot for that movie because I just don't know how else I would have done it. So it was a time of transformation for me

There's something about 1983 - it was a remarkable year in that everything I planned went to plan. So towards the end of "Trafford Tanzi" I was already in the audition process to go into a movie with Sir Lawrence Olivier, Greta Scacchi and Roger Rees and to be in the Dordogne (a region in France) for three months shooting that movie. I knew the actresses that I was up against for the part I played and I was up against the best. That kept my confidence up

Also, I just love this album. I love "Love Is The Law". I knew that every song was special. Every song worked. Nick Tauber gave it the production it deserved. He gave me the vocal presence that I wanted to hear. I think my singing was stronger and more on point because Simon was there to guide me. Simon has always guided me when I'm singing. He’d say “no, don't do (makes a sound), do (another sound)”. Little things like that just make something different. I thought the songs were fantastic

I enjoyed doing the shoot for the artwork. I wanted to look strong and tough and futuristic, like something out of the sci-fi film. We got Swanky Modes designers on board to design my outfit. We shot the video for “Rebel Run”, which was everyone's choice for the first single. There's a few others I'd have liked to have been singles as well. “Time Is Ours” I think is a gorgeous song. “Remember” is a gorgeous song. They could have all been singles

I think "Trafford Tanzi" closed, and I went immediately to Welwyn Garden City where there was a race track, and we shot the cover material with John Swannel. So I got back with John Swannel, who shot the cover of “Thunder In The Mountains “. Again John Swannell is someone that just fills me with confidence. He sees beauty, he brings beauty out so I knew he was right. We had David Mamet directing the video. The best video director in the world which was fantastic. I do have to say by the time we shot the video, which I wanted to be a little bit like the movie “Tron” I was starting to get tired. It had been a long, long six months I wasn’t in burnout - you sometimes get times where you just don't have mental clarity. I remember the day we shot the video. It was only a few days after "Trafford Tanzi" had finished. My body had kind of gone into shock. I think it's a lovely video, and it certainly does what it says on the can. I don't think my lip syncing is great and part of that is probably just pure exhaustion I think the thing is every album needs to have a slight redirection about it, otherwise you're just producing the same thing over and over again. I've always felt that I like to diversify every time. I just like to move in a different way every time. I think that gives your fans more information about you. I definitely wanted the look of “Love Is The Law” and “Rebel Run” to be different to anything I've done before. Part of it was I was just so muscular from having been a wrestler for four months Physically, I was very, very strong and looked great and I just wanted to exploit that and felt confident about it. I also wanted to just look a bit more “Tank Girl” than glamor girl. This is at the time when wonderful, wonderful Duran Duran were using very beautiful girls in their videos. I thought, well, I think I'm just going to go in the opposite direction and I'm going to be a woman at war. A kind of woman on the battlefront, as it were, but a futuristic battlefront I don't know who came up with the fencing idea behind me, but putting red against grey is a very, very strong thing to do because it makes the red really ping. It's a lovely device, and in design using red against grey makes something stand out. So this was all designed by Esme at Swanky Modes and it might have been her decision that we needed people in the background. Like a team behind me, who were all good skaters, who could all stand on their roller skates because we did a lot of posing. We did very minimalistic movement, actually. We we never moved more than about 10 feet each time, and John Swannell just capturing what we did But the girls in the fencing outfits were absolutely fabulous. They could skate brilliantly. They were confident and they were strong. But I don't know who actually came up with that concept of putting the kind of faceless team behind me, but I imagine it was Esme of Swanky Modes. It makes sense *** Watch Toyah talking to Esme Young about "Love Is The Law" and Swanky Modes during The Great British Sewing Bee Christmas Special 2023 on BBC1 HERE

With the logo at the time, we'd obviously had the very famous Toyah logo, which was a part of my signature and I felt that we needed just completely moving to this decade. It's a decade that was very electronic. I'd come from a kind of guitar, punky background and we just were moving forward. We're being forward thinking. I came up with this idea that it’s partly like a lightning bolt, but without the kind of stereotypical zigzag that Bowie used. So we just took it and had it in very straight, sharp angles so it looks like something you could throw at someone if it was made out of metal and that's where the idea came from At the time this was released, I was in the Dordogne halfway through making the movie “Ebony Tower”. We had the video play on Top Of The Pops twice. I think we were really concerned that the album only went to (number) 28 (in the charts) because “The Changeling” went to number two. So it was a bit of a shock. And the single going to 24 was a bit of a shock. We didn't quite understand it. It's an interesting thing to discuss because I was doing a promotional tour on where I heard a record shop in Bristol say, “don't mark down Toyah’s sale. We're putting it under a different artist.” I don't know if that was “Brave New World”. I don't think it was “Rebel Run”. I think it was actually a bit later on I realized that the record shops were not marking things down the way they should be. So I don't know what was going on. I was in France. I wasn't around. It was slightly concerning. It was actually really frightening because this is a brilliant album. But I think when things like that happen you haven't got a team on the ground going to the record shops and actually keeping an eye on stock. I think at that time, those things could happen This point in time I think Joel wanted to musically move in a different direction. I think he actually went off and joined Eurythmics and toured with them. Everyone wanted me to be a solo artist and a solo artist that stood there alone without a band on the stage. So my management at the time were pushing for that. They were pushing for a big deal with CBS. Eventually I signed to the Portrait Label, along with Alison Moyet and Debbie Harry. That's the direction I went in, which seemed a very logical direction to go in at that time I think Joel very successfully moved on to work with other artists and to do a lot of touring. That's what happened, really. None of us questioned it and none of us put a stop to it. It could have very much been helped in a negative way by “Love Is The Law” not catching fire. I think we were definitely disappointed that it didn't go Top 10. There's songs on this album that were influencing people as much as songs on “The Changeling” did. There's a lot that Joel did on this album that I started to hear other bands pick up on. So the influence was there

I think “Love Is The Law” is a very vibrant, brilliant rock/pop album. I think it's absolutely gorgeous. I think the songs are fantastic. There's songs that, when you perform them, like “Martian Cowboy” - they are just remarkable to perform. “I Explode” is remarkable to perform. I think the songs are great. I think the production is great. It just didn't get the window it needed - whether it was that MTV didn't put the video in rotation. You just don't know what that missing ingredient was. But I think this is the one that got away. I love this album At that particular time we were all young and moving on didn't feel an odd thing to do. None of us were sacked, none of us were banned from being with each other. We all kind of made a mutual decision. I think one of the decisions was (the record company) Safari didn't have the power any more to push our albums as much as they needed pushing. They might have felt that on the back of “Anthem” and “The Changeling” “Love Is The Law” could sell itself. Well, that's never the case, and it never has been the case. I think our feeling was that we've done the job that was meant to be done. These incredible albums came out in this period of time. It's now time to move on and explore different territories and different styles It felt absolutely fine at the time. There was no sense of heartbreak. If anything, there was a slight sense of relief because I think a bit of a vacuum was forming between us, the artist and the record label. It could be that with the introduction of MTV, which was in August 1981, where everything became slightly more politicised rather than fans having the power to put something into the charts alone, it could be we just knew we had to move to a major (record label) Simple as that LOVE IS THE LAW - TRACK BY TRACK TOYAH: With "Broken Diamonds", which Joel and I wrote with Simon Darlow there, it meant Simon Darlow could do these wonderful chords that the guitar couldn't quite do. On the keyboards with the synth sound, the stabbing was very 80s. Trevor Horn used the Synclavier to have this kind of orchestra stab. We were looking for this similar kind of punch to come out of the song. But also we were looking at early Motown So what I mean (sings) “sensation, temptation”, all of those things are things that I grew up with Motown, and how their writers used three singers at once to just throw a word out, throw a theme out. This is a really remarkable period in time for song writing with Motown and everything that they put out. I wanted that influence to be put through the mixer as it were, along with my punk/new wave history and what was going on in 1983. We used that kind of style of just using words with three syllables or two syllables to just kind of punch the message home

But also because Simon Darlow (above with Toyah at the Marquee Studios) is a very good arranger, that meant that we could take the song beyond the verse, bridge, chorus, verse, bridge, chorus, and we could develop the middle eight into another journey. So we wanted it to build and build and build and then just gently come down again. A lot of my work is about unrequited emotions and "Broken Diamonds" is about breakdown in communication - of not being able to express oneself or one's true feelings And also, I think there are people out there, and I'm definitely one of them, even though I've been married for 38 years, where love has never been a mutual experience. It's always been something I've just kept to myself. I keep those feelings to myself. That's probably going right back to my upbringing where I was never allowed to express love so with "Broken Diamonds", it's about that lack of ability of communication and how something is broken before it ever is born. It's just about unrequited, broken love in a relationship where something needed to be expressed and couldn't be expressed “I Explode” is my favorite personal all time song. I am so in love with this song. It does everything I've ever wanted a song to do. The repetition is extraordinary and very, very powerful - especially live. It's so challenging for a guitarist to play that riff. What I love about it, it's about standing in moonlight, basically, alone in the moonlight with complete frustration. Again, it's a relationship song, but it's about the inner voice and the repetition is what allows it to grow and to go where it goes. So it's about frustration. It's about realisation of frustration. It's about the power of the individual. Is about anger and it's about release It's just the most extraordinary song. I'm in love with it and I'm probably in love with it because there's an ambiguity about it as well. Yes, it's a relationship song, but it's also an identity song. It's about self identity, and it's a song about how powerful an individual can be to the point that they do actually explode or implode. It's just pure force. I think it's fantastic. I loved recording this song. It was recorded at about midnight one night after a performance of "Trafford Tanzi". Because Nick Tauber was at the controls he gave me such a great sound that I could sing very minimalistically, which allowed me to move the notes with greater dexterity than when you're fighting against a bass drum in your ears

So I wanted the beginning to be very kind of soulful. Might not be the right word, but soulful, emotionally in (sings) “skimming the surface of a dream”, it's melodic, it's beautiful. You don't know where it's going and then the tension builds with the anger, and the anger comes in. But then I wanted backing vocals to come in that were ever so slightly Motown’ish in their delivery - that it's kind of punchy and that brings the listener in. It says welcome in and then whoomph - it just takes off with this kind of roller coaster of anger of I explode, I explode, I explode

“Rebel Of Love” was a very satisfying track to write. Joel Bogen, myself and Simon Darlow - we always have loved experimentation. Joel has a love of jazz and a free form, and I have a love of poetry and what I call lyrical images. My writing is always involved with imagery. I wanted to write something about a boy that was completely unreadable, and that he was unreadable because basically he was not human. This boy knew something before the singer knew it. This boy lived in a different place, a different time. Kind of transcended time, and that's what “Rebel Of Love” is about. It is deliberately abstract and it's abstract because it's about that kind of otherness when you meet someone who's impenetrable yet utterly charismatic When I write, especially when I write with Simon Darlow, we come up with the song with improvisation. So we've been doing that now for close to 50 years. So when we go into the studio, we just improvise. Now I've got apps like Soundtrap, where I can actually build an idea and I build the first 30 seconds and say “Simon, what do you think?” and then he'll build a track on that and I go in and we improvise some more. So we've always come up with the song we intend to write through improvisation With “Rebel Of Love” we were in the gym at my home, and Joel and Simon were just playing this kind of very mysterious music and I started to improvise something I was feeling very strongly and that was this boy that was being idolized for not being human and for being something completely different. So it started as an improvisation, but once we made it to the Marquee Studios, it got its form. I worked on it. I honed it, because I needed Nick Tauber to understand what we were aiming for, and it had to have form for Nick to be able to produce it. But the beginning was improvised, yes When you're recording an album, you do have to keep in mind that something has got to be a single. We didn't really do that with “The Changeling”. We were just lucky that “Brave New World” was so poetical. When I'm writing a song, I'm keeping in mind all the time do I want to perform this live? It's really important to me. If I'm writing something and I'm thinking I don't want to ever perform this live, it's not quite right. So with “Rebel Run”, which Simon Darlow and I wrote, Simon put that pulse in (sings the pulse). It's a really important pulse, and it's the whole backbone of what I'm talking about, which is rebels, it's revolutionaries, its people winning back their town, winning back the industries around their town It's about change. It's like a sci-fi Che Guevara. It's all about the romanticism of rebellion. I wanted it to just have that really important pace, this beat in it, this heartbeat. I think it's done that particularly well. I think it resonates very well. It's fabulous to perform live. And today, in this new millennium, I'm performing it quite often in front of people who are seeing me for the first time

When that bass starts, it's like whoa. It's one of those moments. You know they're not going to forget that song. We made the video not long after I finished "Trafford Tanzi". The whole run of "Trafford Tanzi", that four months, I never was able to come down from that sheer energy of doing a show that was three hours of wrestling every night. Funny enough, when we got to the (video) shoot with David Mamet, I felt exhausted. I was actually really exhausted. I can see it in the video. I can see it in my eyes, I can see the lip sync isn't quite on. I think I was starting to physically crash The video we wanted to base on the movie "Tron". That kind of someone moving through tubes. We didn't have internet at that time, but moving down kind of optical pipes and all of that. I think that's very successful. It is quite a unique video in that, but it's only me. It's an interesting one. I think when I look at it I just see how I physically felt on the day and it was like ugh! My god I need a holiday! “Martian Cowboy” - I've always been totally in love with this song. I love its pace. I love its delivery. I love the musicality of it. Really love the lyrics. There is this story that I was given a sleeping pill and I'm not sure who gave it to me. I might have even had my own sleeping pill. I do know that we we did something very naughty and we slipped one into Joel’s drink. He ended up between the sound booth and the recording booth just going “where am I?” I remember that and I think by that time I might have recorded the whole vocal The thing is, you give me a sleeping pill ... all it does is make me normal. I don't ever really slow down. Nick needed me to just be able to deliver something at a very gentle pace, and that's very rarely me. I'm always a 100 miles an hour in everything I do. So I think there's truth in that story. Who gave me the sleeping pill? I don't know but I know they were too involved and I slipped one to Joel (chuckles) I loved doing that vocal. I really loved it. And it could be that the sleeping pill took away my natural anxiety and doubt about myself that I was just able to float away into the track. I think it’s fabulous track. Fabulous. Performing it live every hair just stands on end because it's so beautiful. “Pop Star” on "Anthem" is about me. It's about alienation. It's about not being able to reach out and contact people with the natural social freedom everyone else has - because fame, ironically, just stops all that. And then when we got to write “Martian Cowboy”, Martian cowboy is the yin and yang. The Martian cowboy is the other person in that relationship, so they both kind of meet up, pop star and Martian cowboy. But the Martian cowboy has exited the song. It's a song of yearning With “Dreamscape”, we just wrote a song that I wanted to perform, and we wanted it to be really, really big and able to use the latest technology in doing it. I wanted something that literally as an experience to listen to would swallow the audience, swallow the listener, and also be about the listener. “The whole of the world needs a dreamscape”. It's an ideology. It's a utopian song, rather than dystopian. I just wanted something that was really, really big and warm and comforting. It's like the treacle sponge and custard song. It wraps you up and it's it's beautiful comfort and warmth

When we recorded it, Nick Tauber just entered into the spirit of it completely. There was so many things he wanted to try. The thing with Nick, he wasn't a producer that worked on his own. He worked with the musicians. So when he wanted to try something we were the people that were playing the instruments. It wasn't Nick. So he completely entered into the spirit of this. He said, “let's try this. Let's loop this. Let's play this backwards. Sing that. Simon, play that. Joel try this”. So we were really involved with everything on this album, and especially with that track. And he enjoyed it as much as us. It was pure expressionism With “Time Is Ours” I was about to turn 25 and this is such a marker point, because at the age of 25 no one warns you of that feeling of never returning to youth, or never returning to the irresponsibility of being a youth. And it hit me, 25. What's next? 30? And I never thought beyond 30. So “Time Is Ours” I think is an absolutely beautiful song in its melodic movement. It’s gorgeous. It's perfect. It's actually about loss and it's about learning to live in the moment, because we are moving through time and if you live in the past, you're losing the present. It's a song about grief and grief of self, but I think at the same time, it's an absolutely stunning pop song With “Love Is The Law” I wanted a song that involved the fans. This is because the fans had been so present in our lives for the whole of this writing process, with them camping outside the Mermaid Theatre where I was performing and then following me to the Marquee Studios. They were there all the time. When we weren't in the studio, when we were in the green room, either having a cup of tea or eating, we could hear them outside. So we started to get more and more involved with them and involving them on some of the tracks, especially “Love Is The Law”. We'd play them tracks. We'd say “what do you think of this? What do you think of that melody? What do you think of that?” We got feedback actually in the moment, which was extraordinary With “Love Is The Law” I wanted something that was a bit like a tribal, urban chant. It was this kind of discovery that love holds everything together. I actually personally, and especially now, that I'm about to turn 66, think love is something that transcends time. I think eternity is love. So it holds on to the past, it's in the present, and it reaches to the future. I think there's something really powerful there. If we want a time machine, look at what love does to us, what love creates, what love makes possible. Then I think we transcend into something other than human "Love is the law" is a saying from Aleister Crowley but also, I think there's a massive clue there in that love is something that is utterly extraordinary. So to bring the fans in on this, and have them do the chorus (sings) “love is the law, love is the law” - it's as simple as that, and bringing in the power of nature and the power of animals and the power of the environment of Earth. It was a song I felt very passionate about when I was writing and very passionate about when I was recording. Funny enough, it's quite a difficult one to do live and if I was ever to do it - the service it needs live, I would have to have a choir on stage and a lot of technology on stage. But I think in the context of this album, it works really, really well

The song was definitely written in the gym at my home and it was something where I was saying I just want this very big chorus of “love is the law”, and we worked on it in the gym. Joel, myself, Simon Darlow - we worked on the sounds. We did a demo, took that into the studio. I've always loved the phrase "love is the law." Never quite understood why Crowley used it, because Crowley was definitely an anarchic and he didn't want the structures we live by today. But when you look on the term "love is the law", it should be something that every nation uses. Separate it from its history and use it as what humans must represent to outer universes. This is the law of life. Love is the law My memory of writing “Remember” is it's one of the last songs. We were coming towards the end of the album, and this is one of the last songs. Probably Joel presented us an idea, like a riff or a section, and then we decided we'll go with that. Let's write a song, because we need another song. That's my kind of feeling about it. But also, when you look at the lyrics, “remember the past”, and it's all about remembering a relationship. It was probably coming towards the end of the recording, and the end of "Trafford Tanzi" and everything that had been so remarkable and in a bubble About four months was coming to an end. There's a melancholy in it. It's "no one gets out of here alive". It's goodbye. It is quite a sad song, really. I cannot remember this story that the lyric came about because I was angry with a fan who was drunk and apparently tried to hit me. I can't remember that incident at all and I can't remember that reason. But when I look at the lyric, the lyric is kind of like a warning, and it's the coming to the end of something. With the fans outside the Mermaid Theatre during the run of "Trafford Tanzi" we were a very happy bunch, but there were some arguments developing between some of the fans towards the end There may have been kind of one occasion where someone would turn up drunk and didn't quite fit in because of that. If was angry at anything, it would be that I was trying to hold so much together and suddenly I was dealing with someone's very personal issues. That would not have been appreciated at a time when I was starring in a play and writing an album. It would be just “don't waste my time, get your life together.” That might have influenced me in some way, but I cannot remember that incident “No one gets out of here alive”. I first heard the term come from Jim Morrison of The Doors. When you say that to someone who hasn't hit 25 it's a terrifying thing. It hits home. No one gets out of here alive. It's so negative. It's such a downer. I think it's also a wake-up call. Today at the age I'm at, it's like god, no one gets out of here alive. Can't fucking wait to move on (laughs) You feel so differently about it. It's a natural process that you've had the privilege of time to experience and understand. I think that no one gets out of here alive is just fact. So make the most of your life. Simple as that

I think “The Vow” was Joel and myself wanting just mature and being more mature writers and definitely release more mature material. We felt that we had a lot of great history, great music behind us and that we wanted to just be seen in a different light. It's a very brave choice to have written “The Vow” and to release it as a single, especially at Christmas. This was a time where we just wanted to sing about peace among mankind and a song about the effects of war on other planets and how that affects how those planets see somewhere as green and as beautiful as Earth Simon Darlow’s father did the string arrangements on it. He also did the string arrangements on “Rebel Run” as well. He was a fantastic arranger, really gorgeous. What he brought into the space was beautiful and perfect. It was lovely to see Simon Darlow so proud that his dad was involved. I think “The Vow” is a gorgeous song, and the fans have always loved it. Ironically, whenever we've performed it live all they do is talk through it. They never listen! Off to the bar. They're talking at me “Hello, Toyah! When are you going to do “Race Through Space”? It's a song they can never focus on yet they always request it

It's a song I like and I'm very happy that we released it and that we stood by it. Very happy. “The Vow” is a very rare song in our repertoire. It's a quiet love song. It's a slow, inward looking love song. I think it's a very sobering song as well. It's a song with a message and that is we've got to stop fighting each other, we've got to stop allowing wars, and we need to promise each other we'll never let that happen. So it's a song about an unspoken promise. I think it's a very natural song to finish “Love Is The Law”

[toyahinterviews]

This interview by Markku Fagerlund is from a Finnish music magazine Suosikki conducted in Stockholm 1.12.1981 during the Good Morning Universe European Tour

THE NEW WILD GIRL OF ROCK: I'M CRAZY ABOUT BUNNIES!

Now I’ve seen her – the hottest rock girl in the world Toyah (Willcox) Compared to this red-headed hurricane other female singers – and some men – look like statues of salt. Toyah is 145 cm of pure fizziness and sex After the concert Suosikki was granted a special interview with her. An honour that only a few magazines in the world have had. Toyah had a look through the latest issue of Suosikki and liked what she saw. Her message to the readers is “keep going strong!”

Toyah Willcox is a 23 year old multitalented artist who has finally had her breakthrough during this year. The latest album “Anthem” has been well received in Europe (currently n:o 2 in the UK) and the gigs have been massively successful Toyah is also famous as an actress. Her sexiness has been noticeable in films like “Quadrophenia”, “Jubilee”, “The Corn Is Green” and countless TV series including “Shoestring”, in which she played an uninhibited punk singer. The episode aired in Finland as well. In December Toyah was on a European tour so we got the chance to get to know this ferocious singer On stage Toyah is like a small red-headed whirlwind. Despite her small size she is an entertainer of a great calibre. She is a bundle of speed who does not give her audience a moment’s respite. Toyah has a very talented four peace band which is lead by guitarist Joel Bogen, her musical partner of many years On the records Toyah’s music is mystic, melodic rock which plays with different themes. Kind of a mix of David Bowie and Kate Bush. On stage the music is a lot more untamed. The drums and the synths create a pulsating platform which Toyah directs with her tight sexy voice She knows how to control the audience. Dressed in black mini-skirt (which is just a belt really), black tights and a tiny top Toyah dances around the stage with a wireless microphone. She squats down by the front of the stage to pose, gets up and continues to move quickly around, singing the whole time

The majority of the songs are from “Anthem”. At first the audience sits completely still, not knowing how to react to this devil but then they start to move to the music. During the most famous hit “I Want To Be Free” the fans rush to the front of the stage and sing along. Another conquest for Toyah The Toyah I meet after the gig is thankfully a bit calmer and very sympathetic. There’s no signs of being a diva but even in normal clothes and makeup she still looks so damn good it hurts MARKKU: Which one is more important to you – singing or acting? TOYAH: Both. Otherwise I wouldn’t do both. I’ve loved acting since I was a kid and it’s a part of me. But then I couldn’t live without music either because I can be myself. When I’m acting I’m playing someone else MARKKU: How did you get interested in acting? TOYAH: Even in school I made up all sorts of stories and pretended to be whatever just to make my life more interesting. That’s where it all started, I guess MARKKU: What about music – did you have certain idols? TOYAH: Of course, many. But above anyone else David Bowie and Marc Bolan. I admire Bowie because he’s like a chameleon. He's always changing his image and music. He’s constantly ahead of his time MARKKU: Judging by the record covers, stage clothes and makeup image is important to you TOYAH: It’s very important. I spend an enormous time designing the record covers. One took 24 hours to shoot before I was satisfied with it. Somebody might say it’s dangerous to concentrate so much on the images but we’re a live band If I was creating these looks only in a studio without people seeing me in real life that might be the case. It’s happened to a lot of bands. The different mystic images are just a part of me

MARKKU: During your gigs you have a habit of going amongst the audience to sit and talk. Isn’t that dangerous for a woman? TOYAH: Only in Enland where the audience starts to grope me. But I think it’s fun to get involved with the audience MARKKU: How do you deal with the troublemakers? TOYAH: Feel that (Toyah shows me her arm muscles, which feel really hard and trained) I punch them to the floor MARKKU: When are you thinking of slowing down, maybe getting married and having kids? TOYAH: Not for years. I think I’m still a kid myself. My biggest love at the moment is bunnies. When I find a suitable place I’m going to start a funny farm. They’re so cute, do the stupidest things, wave their big ears about and eat grass. I’m mad about them MARKKU: I’ve heard you have your own makeup line? TOYAH: Yeah, so the kids can imitate me. No, not really. I’ve designed an affordable collection of makeup which is named after me. The idea is also to give the kids tips as well because I know all the makeup tricks. The makeup is being manufactured in 3 different factories and it’s selling better than in my wildest dreams Toyah’s career isn’t just a bed of roses. Last spring she fainted during a gig due to overexertion TOYAH: According to the doctors it was a close call. I might’ve died. I should’ve stopped the tour but carried on to the end with willpower. After that I’ve made sure something like that never happens again I exercise daily (ballet, jazz dance, gymnastics) and have a good diet. One experience of overexertion was enough. It was horrible. It was like as if my heart exploded and I felt the most awful pain. I’ll never forget it 

You can read the interview in Finnish below (click on the image to view a large version)

[toyahinterviews]

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." 

[toyahinterviews]

TOYAH ON BBC GET SET TRAFFORD TANZI SPECIAL WITH PETER POWELL 23.4.1983

PETER POWELL: (Toyah comes running in, they're in the wrestling ring where the play takes place) Tanzi! Otherwise known as Toyah. Take a seat. Or can we? TOYAH: Oh, yes. A bit pagan here (sits on the floor) PETER: One of these corners will do, I think. Not the kind of surroundings I expect to see you in, really, Toyah TOYAH: It's wonderful though, isn't it? It's great PETER: Love the gear you're wearing as well TOYAH: It's kind of hunky (laughs) PETER: Is this all part of the “Trafford Tanzi” look then? TOYAH: Well yes, it's based in the wrestling ring. We're surrounded by the audience, so in a way you're trapped. It's like being in a cage. It's very cartoonish, the outfit, but it is based on a proper wrestling outfit You've got to be able to move, and must have no restrictions. This cloak is just for show when you walk into the ring posing

PETER: What's the story then?

TOYAH: It's about the life of a girl from the time she's a baby to when she gets married. It's a feminist play. It's about how this girl suffers through the people around her, and she's a very innocent person. She gets beaten up. It's a comedy though (laughs). She gets married and the husband has an affair and that's the turning point in her life

She turns around says "right, I'm going to show you how independent I can be. I'll become come a wrestler". She becomes a wrestler and she becomes a champion. In the end she has a domestic argument with her husband and takes him on. She says "I'm going to fight you and I'm going to beat you". And that's what the play's about. It's building up to that big end sequence

PETER: Your husband is "Dean Rebel", who's gear I'm wearing at the moment, isn't it? When I came to see the play, which I thoroughly enjoyed - I've got to be honest - the whole place is in stitches, because there's a lot of comedy involved in it. I know there's an awful lot of Toyah fans there TOYAH: They're wonderful! And of course they always scream for me, which is sometimes little embarrassing. The men are supposed to scream for "Rebel", and the women are supposed to scream for me. But it is an audience participation play, very much so. If the audience is quiet it drives you bonkers to do the play

But the fans have been great because they haven't shouted my name. They always shout “Tanzi!”. A big fear was you're going hear a lot of "Toyah! Toyah"!" but we haven't. It's been great

PETER: It's a very rough play, though, isn't it? TOYAH: Yes but we've all been trained. We trained for two weeks but I'm not saying that we've become (to have) professional standards, but we've learned how to protect each other. Even though we look as though we're hurting each other, we're all responsible for each other's safety

We had a judo champion in called Howard Leicester, who put us through our paces for two weeks. And we had Mitzi Mueller in - who really is what I'm supposed to be, the European ladies champion. She came in and she was wonderful and she really threw us about. It was great

PETER: You're having to keep fit though?

TOYAH: Very fit

PETER: Very extensive training for yourself

TOYAH: Well, now the play is running that keeps us fit in itself, because it's three hours of solid running about. But when we were training, we were jogging every morning. We used to go jogging between nine and ten. Then we'd do wrestling for about eight hours, and in between that we had to play volleyball as well

PETER: Debbie Harry is doing your part in America

TOYAH: Yes, on Broadway! Lucky devil (laughs)

PETER: So when you finish wrestling - when you get out of the ring ... what happens next when the production closes? TOYAH: At the moment I'm making an album in the daytime

PETER: So new music's not forgotten?

TOYAH: Oh gosh, no!

PETER: Everyone who has written in (has asked about it) -

TOYAH: In a way doing this play is using up all my physical energy, which there's too much of anyway. So by time I finish this play, which is 10 in the evening, I go and work on the album till six in the morning. My mind is ready to do the album - I've sort of got all of the tension out in the system

That's going really well. We go on tour in August. We're going to do England, going to do Europe, and then we're off to America. We'll be on tour until December

PETER: Great! So we're going to be able to see when you finish wrestling?

TOYAH: Oh, yeah!

PETER: Lovely

TOYAH: I'm afraid so PETER: No, everyone wants to see you, I assure you. So listen, show us what you're made of (they get up) TOYAH: OK PETER: It's been a great pleasure interviewing you, Toyah (takes her by the hand and throws her around the ring with her ending face down on the floor. Peter puts his foot on her back)

You know, she does 10 three minute rounds of that, and she still sings a song at the end of it. And don't you go writing in to complain about my mistreatment (Toyah lifts her head up as to say “please do”. I'll see you next month

Watch the interview HERE

[toyahinterviews]

TOYAH ON ITV HTV WEST RECOLLECTIONS WITH MARY PARKINSON OCTOBER 1987

MARY PARKINSON: Hello and welcome to “Recollections”. My guest today has among her keepsakes a Victorian toy, a pair of platform sole shoes and a lucky charm bracelet. Once hailed as the "thinking man's punk" she's the talented singer and actress Toyah Willcox TOYAH: Hello! MARY: Toyah, not many of my guests have brought their underwear along, so I'm sure there's a good story about that pair of red knickers TOYAH: Well, I haven't brought them along out of any form of disrespect, but when I was making “The Ebony Tower” (1984), it was a great laughing matter that throughout the whole of the film I had to wear red underwear. I got on very well with the makeup department, two wonderful ladies who became very close friends At the end of shoot party they both very coyly came up to me and said “we bought you a little present” and it was in a tiny little package. I unwrapped it and there they were! (Mary laughs) Far too small for me to wear because I have generous English measurements, but it's lovely because it's from a French Marks and Spencer's MARY: In fact it's a memorable film because you worked with Sir Laurence Olivier (below with Toyah) TOYAH: Very memorable, yeah MARY: Do you remember the first time you ever met him? TOYAH: Yes, I was in the Granada (TV) buildings. I passed the audition and it was the first read through. This very charming elderly gentleman came up to me and asked me where the gents (toilet) was I suddenly realised it was him. So I guided him to the gents and then I went to find the rehearsal room. We officially met over the script, as it were, and he was charming. Absolutely wonderful MARY: Were you quite nervous at the idea, though, of working with such a great actor? Did it worry you? TOYAH: I think I was more nervous about working with the media of film. I'd just come off stage from doing a season with “Trafford Tanzi” about female wrestlers.  I'd lost all my feminine grace and I was very very worried about working on film On film your acting can be quite minute and on stage you're huge. I was more worried about coming down to that level. With Lord Olivier there was never any problems because he makes you instantly at ease. He's a born charmer

MARY: But nevertheless you actually had to strip. I mean most of the film you were sort of semi-naked. Did that worry you a bit? TOYAH: Oh, it worried me totally. Because even though you're in character ego wise you're very aware of all the things that you feel insecure about. So yes, it was nerve-racking. But on the first day the director stripped too, which was so hysterical (Mary laughs) we asked him to put his clothes back on When it came down to the big strip, Lord Olivier was great. He was very charming. He looked straight out when he talked to you. He talked to you sideways, and was full of discretion. But it's not something I'd like to make a career out of because I don't feel confident like that. And people remember you for that rather than for the quality of your work MARY: You've been acting a long time. And in fact, some years ago, you acted with Katharine Hepburn - another great actress. What were your sort of lasting impressions of her? TOYAH: I felt very safe with her. I had very bad knowledge of camera technique when I made “The Corn Is Green” (1979) She gave me lots of advice about performing to the camera but ignoring the camera at the same time, which is so valuable to a 19 year old - which I was then MARY: So you were lucky actually to have that chance to do it. In fact, your next little item is to do with luck, because it's a lucky charm bracelet. What's the story behind that? TOYAH: I find this a slightly melancholy story. I was with my mum (below with Toyah), I was about seven years old and she was going through the attic. She got out this suitcase full of clothes and in among the clothes was this little charm bracelet. It's silver. I don't know how old it is She said it was hers, but I've suddenly realised that there's a Taurus symbol on it. I'm a Taurus, my brother's a Taurus. My mother's a Libra. So I don't know whether it's hers or her mother's or what because my mother has never talked about her family. I think she lost her family when she was quite young So I said to mom “I love it”, because it was glittery and I didn't have any jewellery at all. She said I could have it. The most influential part of this is that it has a sphinx on it. I've always, from as far back as I can remember, been in love with Egypt and Egyptology. So it meant a lot to me MARY: Your mother was rather mysterious about her family. Did that make her a rather remote figure for you?

TOYAH: In childhood we were very close. I wasn't a very well child. I was born with a few physical defects and I depended on my mother a lot. I had to literally learn how to walk, learn how to speak, and learn how to read. It was all very, very slow. I was always ill in the stomach. I couldn't digest food very well So I was totally physically and emotionally dependent on my mother so we were very close. Then one day I woke up and I suddenly realised that there's a big world out there and I want to be a part of that world. I grew away from the family background MARY: What about your father? Because you have a little Victorian toy there that reminds you of him TOYAH: I love this. My father and my mother were very into antiques. I went into a junk shop with my father and found this. I must say I'm not sure whether I was with mum or dad when I found this, but I always relate this to my father For me this sums up Christmas and the security of Christmas. The fire burning and all those safe feelings that a family gives you. I don't know what it is. I don't know where it comes from. It's a little bird on a stone MARY: Was he very supportive with you during the difficult times? TOYAH: He was a disciplinarian, but at the same time he was the most anarchic person I've ever known. High moral standards, but at the same time broke every rule that irritated me. When it came down to going to school and keeping those rules. Like indoor and outdoor shoes and changing knickers after gym, all that. My father wasn't interested in that. He was more interested in the worldly vision I had inside me of being part of the world MARY: You've got couple more things from your childhood. The little tiny locket TOYAH: This is the first thing I ever bought with my pocket money. It's a tiny gold locket. It was 12 and six (12 shillings and six pence) I saved up my pocket money I think for a year. Mum took me into the jewellers and I said “Oh, I want that” It opens up and inside it I keep a little ball of fur from a rabbit I had. The rabbit was called Snowy and it was my best friend for two years. I didn't let anyone near this rabbit. In the morning I'd get up and he'd be in the garden. I'd call him and he'd come into the house, up the stairs and get in bed with me until mum chucked us out. I have a little picture of him. It's a terribly grubby transparency MARY: This is the tiddly little Toyah. It's a very old little picture TOYAH: It suffered many toffee sticky fingers MARY: So you kept it all the way through TOYAH: Snowy was such a friend and he was a relationship with an animal that some old women have with their dogs. It's something that you never let go of. He actually bit anyone that came near me. I was the only one that could go near him, (we were) very close

MARY: What about school then? I mean if you were sort of thinking, well, there's a big world out there. You were not very successful at school? TOYAH: No. What I didn't like about school was the laws of femininity that were being put upon me. You had to learn to knit and had to learn to sew because one day you'll have babies. I never felt I'd have children and I never felt that I'd get married early. I always wanted to have a career. Because I wanted to act and sing I was thought of as a bit of a loser because these weren't careers. These were dreams MARY: Were you a bit of a rebel? Were you naughty at school? TOYAH: I was absolutely awful. I was dyslexic and very slow. At one point I was almost genius at mathematics, which is quite common in dyslexia, but by the time I was 11 that started to fade pretty quickly. No one could understand me. No one got on with me. It was purely my own fault. I disliked any petty rules, such as you can't go through that door or you have to go through that door MARY: You were thrown out of the art class. Was that deliberate on your part? TOYAH: I can show you why I thrown out the art class. I only wanted to draw gravestones or things like this. I had an absolute obsession with death, which I think is very much part of the growing up. This is one of my first drawings of my view of the world It was a dome. I called it the dome. I carried on drawing science fiction type things - things that carried on into my my working life as a singer because I found it all very important for my image MARY: You had difficulty - in fact you were dyslexic? TOYAH: Yes. It made my mind very visual because I couldn't think in letters or numbers. I thought in images. So my mind was very creative on that level. In fact I've got a poem here that isn't part of the vocabulary I made up, but I used it on an album that became a platinum album ("Anthem", 1981) It's called “The Journey”, so I'll quickly read it to you. Can you bear it? MARY: Yes, I can TOYAH: I was 12 when I wrote this, and it goes “We scan their skies with stardust eyes and kiss their rainbow mind So we jumped right down and played the clown to their glittering kind They clapped and cheered, it was mighty weird but we have to go home So we went back to the ship for our cosmic trip right through their dome On through the skies, we tell no lies, we were all upon our own” I had this obsession about aliens and being alien

MARY: That came in through your career afterwards? TOYAH: Yes MARY: Part of this sort of rebellion actually came out into your clothes, because you then started to wear outrageous clothes as well. We've got these extraordinary shoes. I mean I used to wear platform shoes but - TOYAH: I think these are a work of art MARY: What's the story behind these? TOYAH: When I was 12 I started wearing platform shoes, much to the dismay of my family. I'm small. I'm 4"11 so when the platforms came in, it meant the world to me. Boys started looking at me. By the time I was 14 my tastes had become more exotic. These are made out of wood and leather, and they're studded. These were my best (shoes) MARY: Was it possible to wear them?! TOYAH: Well, yes. It's an art form to wear a platform shoe. You have to have very strong ankles and very good balance. After two years I could dance and run in these MARY: So you used to go out in those? TOYAH: I used to go to the disco in them. I was the envy of the whole of Birmingham that I could wear these. Most of my girlfriends thought I was utterly mad and it was quite justified - they were very envious that I could actually get away with wearing these. They suited my personality. I danced all evening. I'd go to a disco from six till about midnight and not stop dancing and wear these at the same time MARY: What did your parents think? I mean they sent you to this rather good school and so on TOYAH: They were very dismayed. By that time I was quite weird. I was always wearing black. I started dying my hair secretly. I had a kind of blue black color, a pointed fringe, pointed sides, and a shaved head at the back so I looked like Dr Spock (in "Star Trek") By this time my mother, at one point - it was rumored - had a word with the Samaritans about me (Mary laughs). I was very, very insular. I'd lock myself in my room. I ate on my own. I cooked my own food and had to be left alone MARY: Extraordinary. You were quite young in the 60's, so you weren't actually part of the people that were flashing around and enjoying the 60's but you were growing up. Were you aware of the 60's? TOYAH: Oh, yes, because my sister (Nicola, below with Toyah) was eight years older than me. My brother was five years older than me. It was wonderful to witness my sister being a part of the 60's and my parents rebelling against the 60's. I was about nine just witnessing the mini skirts and the sexual revolution My brother used to smuggle me into midnight movies in Worcester. We'd go at the weekends. 12 o'clock the cinemas would show late night movies - they were soft porn. I used to go with all his friends. They drove around in army Jeeps So at two in the morning we'd come out of the cinema. I'd be drunk because alcohol would pass around quite freely. We'd go off, and we'd drive around the chalk pits at Breedon Hill in these Jeeps, having a wild time till the sun came up

MARY: So you didn't miss the 60's at all? TOYAH: No. Then I'd go back to bed and mum would wake me up at 10 thinking I've been in all night - and I had a hangover MARY: Who were your pop heroes then? TOYAH: Marc Bolan was my first one. I think what I recognised in him was the visual aspect. Vision always meant a lot to me. The glitter teardrop he had, the corkscrew hair, the platforms he wore. The songs he wrote influenced me greatly. They were all about this planet called "Rarn" MARY: How did you actually get into pop then yourself? TOYAH: I was at the National Theater. I was 18 and I joined the National Theater Company for nine months and formed the band when I was there. Coming from Birmingham I was very naive. London terrified me. I knew nothing. But my naivety carried me through, because it gave me a braveness I wasn't sensitive to bitchery and to people digging the dagger in your back, which is very commonplace when you're a newcomer in the industry. So I just plowed straight into a room and said, "oh, I heard you play guitar. Come and write with me." It was literally as simple as that MARY: You brought with you a selection of your costumes. Did you know what you wanted and did you help design them? TOYAH: It's interesting. My main designer was Melissa Caplan. I met her at a party. I didn't know who she was and she didn't know who I was. I said, “I'm looking for a type of costume that is made by hand, designed in the mind, but depicts childhood”, I suppose. She came up with this one (below). This is one of her first ones. I'll hold it against me It's hand-painted cotton because cotton lasts. I was going on the road for years at the time and it had to last on stage with kids pulling it apart. This goes over a black dress. I view this as as a piece of jewellery because it is an accessory. It's based on the Egyptian theme again, all the serpents and the snakes and things. She also did this one, which I wore on stage. Again, this is hand-painted suede with gold studs. That's a jacket MARY: Beautiful! TOYAH: She was very good at that MARY: You often get the feeling that stage clothes look great in the light, but don't bear looking at close up. That's absolutely gorgeous TOYAH: Also they're one-offs, which is very important. Now, this one isn't Melissa Caplan. This is an Italian designer. It's hand signed. I'm not very into extravagance. These came from the simplicity of Melissa's mind - she's very intelligent. But it was for free MARY: I understand, yes

TOYAH: She didn't charge hundreds of thousands of pounds to make them. She created them and enjoyed creating them. This was £500 pounds and I thought it was extortionate. It's a neck scarf and it is very beautiful MARY: That is beautiful TOYAH: So I treated myself to that. But I treasure Melissa's more than anything in the world because of the heart that they came from. I'll show this one next. This is a rubber dress. This came from a young designer I found in Hyper Hyper (at Kensington Market). It's latex rubber and you wear it like a glove. It's incredibly tight It takes two people to zip you in, and you can't wear anything underneath. Once you put it on you polish it with Mr. Sheen (furniture polish) and it becomes very glass like - like black water and it reflects everything. The only problem is when you get hot you sweat and then it slides off - which happened to me in Germany two years ago, much to the joy of - (Mary laughs) MARY: Would you wear that with the big boots? TOYAH: Yes, these thigh boots. I've got lousy short legs so thigh boots are my saving grace. I wear those on stage most of the time. The heel's very important to me. I've learned how to run and dance in them, you know - the usual story This one is one of my designs. I had this design (made) for (a concert at) Hammersmith Odeon. I call it the "Picasso print". I wanted something that when we opened on stage the spotlight could be on this - on me, and then the spotlight grew, and there we were (all) standing there. This is hand-painted cotton MARY: So really it's a combination of the actual designs and the effect on stage and so on TOYAH: I think image, fashion and music go hand in hand. Another piece I'd like to show you is this MARY: It's like a baseball mask TOYAH: It's based on the skeletal structure of a baseball helmet. I had a suit of armor made out of red perspex (below) with huge shoulders that I wore on (the "Rebel Run", 1983) video and on stage. This is a headdress. Because I was shooting the video so quickly the designer Simon had to have it cast in bronze because it's the only way he could get it to me overnight. So this is actually a bronze (piece). Then on the road later I had a replica made in chrome with the microphone in the jaw piece MARY: When you're on stage and you're in your black shiny dress and your high heel shoes - it's a very sort of sexy, brash Queen of Punk (look) and all that. Do you feel very powerful when you're whipping that audience up into a frenzy?

TOYAH: These costumes are symbols of power. I think that there is a part of femininity that is very symbolic of power. It can go against you. There's a story when I played in Bath. I think it was 1979 and the National Front used to recruit at our gigs because my band was Jewish and it would send us into a kind of war with them We whipped this Bath audience up into a frenzy. There was about 5000 people in this hall, and they were Sieg Heiling (doing the Nazi salute) at us. I couldn't get the band to carry on playing because they just didn't want to know. So my guitarist went in and was fighting away. I went in to save him. In the end the National Front gang disappeared and we carried on with the gig Then we realised they'd gone off to get the rest of the National Front in the area who were by this time surrounding the building. The police had to come and get us out. We crawled out of the loo window. But that's the negative side of it all MARY: Do you feel a bit responsible, though, for - TOYAH: Oh, you have a huge responsibility. You are setting an example within your life to these people. You're doing something that they probably would desire to do too. You have to keep standards. You have to set an example. Undoubtedly MARY: As you say there is another side to the fans - we've got some lovely things here that the fans have sent you. You have some rings - TOYAH: These I wore all the time. I don't wear them so much now. These are a symbol to my fans of me - as well as the ankh, the Egyptian cross. Tiny thing I have there (shows her ankh earring). These are eye rings. They're made out of glass eyes set in silver. Most of my fans wear these. It's a standard uniform. I see this as the third eye. It's the all seeing eye. It's the eye of that sees creation and is creative Some people say it sees evil and wards off evil. This is intriguing. This came in a hollow book from a princess in Saudi Arabia who bought all my albums, but because of the Saudi Arabian laws she wasn't allowed to tell anyone. It's a gold ring. I don't know what the stones are. They're blue and red. Very beautiful. She said (in her letter) “please don't write back to me because the palace would be annoyed” I checked her out and it was genuine. She was a genuine princess. (This is a) little Toyah ring from a very loyal fan. Also, I'd like to tell you about this. The diamond in this (ring) was left for me at the stage door at the Mermaid Theatre by an anonymous man who said, “thank you for everything you've done for me. Your work has kept me going” MARY: “Thank you very much, (signed) Anonymous Man” TOYAH: It's a diamond so I had that made into a ring MARY: (the next item) Now that's beautiful! TOYAH: This is phenomenal. Made by a fan. I think it's based on copper and enamel (below). It's the beetle. I wonder what they call the beetles in Egyptology. Can't remember. But anyway it's Egyptian. I wear it very rarely because it is delicate and I treasure it. It's something I'll keep for the rest of my life because of the workmanship that's gone into this MARY: Are you really touched by fans who really love you and send you presents? Does it worry you a bit?

TOYAH: At one point it upset me because I didn't feel I was being loyal to what they saw in me. I felt guilt actually, because I'm a private person. In private life I'm quiet. I'm not a rock and roller that goes to wild parties and things like that. I am very much into mythology and the right side of a cult, which is what this represents to me - purely as a hobby MARY: You said that you're quiet now, but this is the new Toyah, isn't it? In fact there was a stage in your life when you ran away from what you were and that's when you met Robert (Fripp), your husband. What were you running away from? What did you want to get rid of? TOYAH: I think basically the society I was born into. I don't really believe in class structures. I'd like to see everyone born with equal chances MARY: Didn't you also want to run away from the lifestyle you were leading? TOYAH: You mean within the pop world? MARY: Yes. The pop world – you change your image a lot TOYAH: Well, it was exhausting. Also you're always on a pedestal. There came a time where I just wanted to scream and be really angry and be foul to everyone. I felt I had no right to be like that. Also because people were seeing me being a little bit godlike when I felt like Joe Public (normal) all the time. It does mess you up in there (points to her head) MARY: What is the new Toyah? What is it? What have we got now? TOYAH: (laughs) Well, the new Toyah isn't that new because I still feel very connected with this (the costumes she's brought in). What I do feel at the moment is that it's not appropriate for me to be like this. In 1981 it was appropriate for me to be like that and a time will come when it will be appropriate for me to be like that again MARY: Now you're enjoying marriage to Robert TOYAH: Well, we don't see each other that often because of my work. I'm on stage every night in the West End. When I'm not on stage I tend to be working on music. But what I felt was wrong was that I was living this glamorous pop star life when I didn't know music well enough So now I'm studying music. It's very boring, very academic but I'm studying singing, studying playing the piano and studying dress design. So when I get my band together again I will really know what I'm doing. I won't feel a victim of everyone around me MARY: Toyah, we've enjoyed you very much indeed and we look forward to all these new things that are going to happen. Thank you very much for joining us today TOYAH: Thank you MARY: And thank you for watching. I hope you've enjoyed it. From us all here goodbye Watch the programme HERE

[toyahinterviews]

TOYAH ON BBC 1 BREAKFAST TIME WITH SELINA SCOTT, FRANK BOUGH AND RUSSELL GRANT 28.3.1983

SELINA SCOTT: She has a demanding role which has required her to learn wrestling and as if acting wasn't enough she has her own rock band called Toyah, and many chart successes to her credit  A clip from the Ulster Hall 8.4.1981 gig plays SELINA: Strange looking back at three years ago TOYAH: Cor, a chubby thing SELINA: You're not TOYAH: (That was) wonderful. That was in Ireland (below). Great audience. Later that night I fell in into the audience and they ripped my costume to pieces. It was one of my favorite costumes as well SELINA: Oh, surely you had something left underneath? TOYAH: Oh, yeah, a sort of dress but they nicked the best bit of it, which is the painted part SELINA: You're the girl that Terry Wogan has described as "looking like an unmade bed" TOYAH: Apparently that's supposed to be a compliment SELINA: Was it? TOYAH: But my mum's after him for that. That really upsets her

SELINA: These men pass around comments about girls getting up in the morning looking the way they do and really they have no right, have they? TOYAH: Oh, no. Not at all FRANK BOUGH: My mum is also after Terry Wogan, who's said nasty things about me SELINA: What has he said?

FRANK: I can't remember, but he's always knocking me

TOYAH: We should form a society. "Rock Against Wogan" (laughs)

SELINA: I'd love the cameras to pick up the back of your hair because it's fascinating. It looks like little weasel tails, doesn't it? Look!

TOYAH: It's supposed to be like animal skin

SELINA: Why did you go and have that done?

TOYAH: Well, one of my hairdressers called Robert Lobetta was nagging me to grow my natural color back, which is black. One of the only ways to introduce my natural coloring is putting it in the ends as well, so it won't look too bad when the roots grow back

But another reason is it's very animalistic and the part I'm playing at the moment, "Trafford Tanzi", is quite aggressive. I thought it'd be nice if, while she's flying through the air and fighting men, the hair looks like an animal as well. I'm trying to introduce that instinct into the play SELINA: Do you find that many children follow your style to the letter and will go out and get their hairdressers to do that?

TOYAH: Not so much children because I always advise that young kids should not go about dying their hair. It's not good for you, really. But a lot of teenagers, say, from about 15 upwards kind of copy me. But I think you should create your own look because this is part of my personality. This is part of me. It's not a contrived thing at all

SELINA: But you have a tremendous following and also therefore a tremendous responsibility to the teenagers who are copying you TOYAH: I'd never encourage anybody to damage themselves in any way. This machine is so important to us all and we must love and respect it

SELINA: OK, Toyah, we'll come back to you. We're going to talk about your new “Trafford Tanzi” play

FRANK: Can I ask you - don't you get doors shut in your face when you appear in places looking like that? You say you don't dye your hair. You once changed your hairstyle and coloring every day for a week. Do some people say "go away, you can't come in here" TOYAH: Not so much in England. In foreign countries I've actually had harassment from the police because of the way I look. They just think I'm up to no good, which is quite frightening when you're in a country where you can't talk the language and heavies with guns drag you away at an airport. It terrified (me) It's usually because of the way I look

FRANK: You should wear a suit like me. Nobody harrasses me

Later in the programme

SELINA: Toyah Willcox is our guest of the day and she's been listening to you (astrologer RUSSELL GRANT) with rapt attention, haven't you? TOYAH: Oh, yeah

SELINA: Do you believe the things that Russell says? TOYAH: Oh, yes but most days I don't even read a horoscope in case it's bad, (then) I'll believe it's bad and things like that

SELINA: Can you guess Toyah's birth sign? RUSSELL: Well, Taurus – Toyah Taurus! Now that was a faux pas. But it wasn't, actually. I always think that Toyah reminds me of a lump of wholemeal bread

TOYAH: (sarcastically) Nice!

RUSSELL: Well, it is. Secure, a mouthful is all you need because it fills you up. There is this wonderful earthiness about you. So there's no doubt it's Taurus as far as I'm concerned

SELINA: Is that right?

TOYAH: It is

RUSSELL: The security factor, I believe, is important to you simply because there is a need to have that security around you. Do you find that? Especially on material things? TOYAH: Yes, I find that within this profession I'm in you need the security of knowing that you've got work the next day. I find that's very important. As for emotional security ... I'm quite a jealous person

RUSSELL: It can be a possessive sign

TOYAH:(I have a) terrible temper when it goes. I am definitely the bull in the china shop FRANK: You hit the nail on the head when you talked about having energetic - I mean, she is an immensely energetic lady

RUSSELL: (There's) a very tremendous amount of power as Taurus. It can go on. It's like a marathon runner of the zodiac. And it's very sensual. It loves to touch (and be) tactile. Very often its relationships are just touching someone without anything else. There is this need to be very close to people. And the loyalty factor -that must be important to you?

TOYAH: Oh yes, I am loyal but I haven't noticed I need to touch people RUSSELL: The last two and a half years have been a very important transforming time, in fact. Now, Toyah, over the next year you can do your own thing. But I would suggest that come 1984-85 when Saturn begins to oppose your your sun sign, it's a very, very good time then to live off of what you have been doing. So I would build now for 1984-85

SELINA: Yes, I was going to say let's take a look at Toyah acting. She's currently starring in “Trafford Tanzi” at London's Mermaid Theatre. But as though acting isn't demanding enough, she also has her own rock band Toyah and many chart successes to her credit. And here she is now

A selection of music clips play

SELINA: I wonder why you bother acting when you can sing like that

TOYAH: Oh, acting fulfills the soul

SELINA:Does it?

TOYAH: So does music ... I suppose (laughs) I'm just greedy SELINA: But everyone there was looking at you, reacting with you, being with you TOYAH: The audiences can be so wonderful. I spark off the audience. I get my energy from the audience reaction SELINA: What kind of age groups are you talking about? TOYAH: Everybody. I mean we get we get kids about five. We even had a guy called Raymond who followed us around, who must have been quite near 40. He was quite stunning. They all bop along in the audience. It's lovely to see people enjoying themselves. The atmosphere is great SELINA: I was wondering if you belong more to the punk cult looking at your hair and your dress and everything TOYAH: Not really, not anymore. I started off in that field. Punks are very proud people and their music is quite political. My music is based in fantasy, really, and my politics are quite bizarre and quite naive. So I'm not really a serious punk person

SELINA: You just sound so mature too, don't you? (Toyah laughs) We'll come back to you later on

Later in the programme FRANK: Toyah has been performing prodigious feats of strength on the stage and here in the studio. Hey, show us your muscles

TOYAH: Oh, my mum will kill me. This is what's happened to me in two weeks (rolls up her sleeve and shows her arm muscles)

SELINA: Oh! How did you get that?

TOYAH: Picking up men (laughs) FRANK: I told you if you said that the press would say "Toyah Willcox picks up men". That's what they do

TOYAH: Right. Right on

FRANK: It must be making you feel terrifically well

TOYAH: Very well indeed

FRANK: I have a vague memory of days when I was fit. You do feel much better

TOYAH: Oh, yeah. I must say the whole cast have been through what I've been through. They're wonderful people to work with. I enjoy it so much. I never like to leave the theatre each night because they're such great people

SELINA: But do they enjoy being jumped on by you? 

TOYAH: We jump on each other. It's wonderful. It's such a good play. It's a brilliant play FRANK: Does it all take place in the wrestling ring?

TOYAH: Yes, in the round (ring) so that you're surrounded by the audience. But the play carries itself. It's so exciting. It's for the whole family, really. The language is a bit strong here or there -

FRANK: But what does it say? I mean it's a curious allegory, isn't it? To use a wrestling ring?

TOYAH: Well, for me it's about a woman who's so gullible she's taken in by her husband. The husband's having an affair with her best friend and she turns around and says "why should I take this? I'll get you back at your own game". He's a wrestler so get I him back by wrestling him. Not through strength but through speed and being quick with the brains

FRANK: There's argument wrestling -

TOYAH: She wins. She catches him out because she's quick and he can't get hold of her, as it were

FRANK: You're a very articulate lady and you've packed a tremendous amount into your life so far. You're 24, no more than that. Is that a bit like you? I mean are you argumentative and determined to say things and have a strong point of view about anything?

TOYAH: Only when I'm being used. I hate being used and I hate being lied to. The profession is still a very male profession. The one thing I won't take is having wool pulled over my eyes. I'm not so much argumentative. I stick up for myself rather than remain silent

FRANK: You don't trust people too much, do you?

TOYAH: Oh, I do. I do. But once lied to ... then I don't trust people

Watch the interview HERE

[toyahinterviews]

TOYAH ON ATV TODAY MAY 1981

HOST: Toyah Willcox has just had a Top 10 hit. She's got another racing up the charts, and is currently on tour. She's not one to mince words, as this clip from a documentary made by ATV now shows A clip from the Toyah documentary plays. Toyah says touring is very tiring HOST BOB WARMAN: After all you said, just just a few months ago - here you are. You're back on tour again? TOYAH: Oh, yes. Well, I always contradict myself. I mean you've got to tour. I think it's so important to prove that you're a real person, that you're flesh and blood. So many female artists - you don't see them on tour. I just think it's very important to prove yourself. That's all BOB: It's quite interesting what you were just saying on film. Anyone seeing that, I'm sure, would get absolutely the wrong impression TOYAH: Yes! Nasty me! (laughs) You've got to be tough. I think if you're a woman in a male dominated world, you've got to be slightly better or prove yourself more than the man has to - before a man would accept you on their level BOB: But do you think we do live in a male dominated

TOYAH: At the moment - BOB: Female monarch, female Prime Minister? TOYAH: I think in London it's a very sort of unisex type of world. But I think once you get up North, you've still got chauvinism. Chauvinism rules type thing, and I find that a lot on tour. The male audiences become more chauvinistic as you go up North BOB: But they come to see you, don't they? TOYAH: Oh yeah. They're all fun

BOB: I'd like to ask you how you arrived at the point that you are now, because you had a very orthodox upbringing in Birmingham. You went to a Church of England School. You left school with, I think, one O Level in music TOYAH: Yeah, very brainy (they both laugh) BOB: So does this mean that you always wanted to do what you're doing now? TOYAH: Oh, totally. I was an incredible dreamer when I was at school. It wasn't exactly the school ('s fault). I was just very bored. I just felt trapped, and I wanted to get out. I wanted to act and sing

I think that the ambition started when I was about nine. I just wanted to escape, really. I had a very strict upbringing, which sort of made me want to be zany and rebel and things like that BOB: Well, you're certainly not afraid of work, are you? Do do a fantastic amount of work TOYAH: I love it. It's great fun BOB: Would you prefer acting or singing?

TOYAH: Oh, I've got to do both. I like both for totally different reasons. I find if I escape from my own music for a few months to do some acting, then while I'm acting I'll probably write a lot of lyrics. So I benefit from doing both, totally BOB: So you're looking forward now to finishing your tour and going back to doing a bit of acting? TOYAH: Oh, yes BOB: That's marvellous. Thanks very much for coming in and joining us TOYAH: Thank you BOB: I know you had to break off from a very very busy schedule. We won't let you go without hearing a clip from your latest single "I Want To  Be Free" TOYAH: Yes. Let me go (laughs) Watch the interview HERE

[toyahinterviews]

TOYAH ON PEPSI LIVE! MUSIC BOX APRIL 1987

HOST NINO FIRETTO: Now, then - she's here. You're very early. We've got a bit of time to kill   TOYAH: I wanted to come have fun with you NINO: We'll have a look at your video later. It's a remake, isn't it? TOYAH: Yeah, of “Echo Beach” NINO: By Martha And The Muffins. The Damned have done a remake as well TOYAH: Have they really! (giggles) NINO: I can't get any sense out of her, bless her (Toyah's giggling) It's been a long day! Couple of music videos play NINO: Hello. There was Tony Hadley with “Communication” from the Spans (Spandau Ballet). He wants to be an actor TOYAH: Hahaha! Don't we all! (laughs) NINO: You've already cracked it. You've done it TOYAH: No one ever cracks it. It's a lifetime! NINO: Do you prefer acting or singing?  TOYAH: I like working full stop. I am a performer. I love music and I love acting, but they're two very separate personalities within me. I think one of the best people I ever worked with was Katharine Hepburn, who was mad! She was a wild woman. She'd cycle to work each day NINO: I heard her new album. It's very good, isn't it? (Toyah laughs) When you were little and you were growing up did you think right, I'm going to take that line there and become a singer, or am I going go over there and act?

TOYAH: Originally I wanted to be a spy and then I wanted to be a female fighter. I've always been into physical things. I wanted to be a Thai kickboxer and I spent a lot of time getting very muscly NINO:Strange, but I like it TOYAH: And then “Sound Of Music” came out. By this time I'd burnt all my dolls that my mother tried to give me and I decided I wanted to act and sing. I was about seven then NINO: There's not a lot of Thai boxing in “Sound Of Music” (Toyah laughs) I've seen it. You're actually doing “Cabaret” (at the Strand Theatre, London), aren't you? Is that the old Liza Minnelli version? TOYAH: It's Berlin in 1932 so it's about pre-war and and there's no money around, and very it's decadent NINO: But you're having troubles, darling TOYAH: I know! NINO: Wha's happening? TOYAH: Well, rumor has it that the orchestra strike* tonight will bring the show off. So I don't know until I get there NINO: Ah! What do you think of your old image? In your new video you're chopping up your old photos TOYAH: Images are disposable. They're transient, like fashion. It all moves on and fashion captures the time. It catches the moment and that's all the images are about. I didn't really want to remain in anything NINO: So let's have a look at “I Want To Be Free”, and see what you think of this afterwards, right? This is you sort of getting upset at all the cutlery (Toyah laughs) The video of "I Want To Be Free" plays NINO: That is a brilliant video! TOYAH: I love it! NINO: A total rebel, aren't you? Are you really like that?

TOYAH: That was actually the real me NINO: Which of your old videos is your favorite? TOYAH: I like that one. And I also like “Thunder In The Mountains”. Anything that's very wild and over the top and quite dangerous NINO: Was that the one with the horse? TOYAH: Yes, "Thunder In The Mountains" was me on a chariot. I almost killed myself doing it. "Brave New World" was me on a horse that really didn't like me and was doing everything it could to get me off it NINO: What's happened to "Toyah" in the past what year? You haven't been so much into the singing and - TOYAH: I've been making an album. I got married to a man called Robert Fripp, who's a guitar player. That's an understatement. Been acting, doing films, the usual things. I just I wanted to drop the kind of "Toyah has colored hair and she's zany and mad". That wasn't the reality of it. I just wanted to get away from it and then come back in again NINO: Can I? So this is your own hair? (touches her hair) TOYAH: This is my hair NINO: So you've grown all this. Is it a different image for you then? All change? TOYAH: Well, I'm kind of a woman now. In that video - it was almost 10 years ago. Well, six years ago. I was young and fresh and now I'm a woman NINO: So you've not quietened down? Married life hasn't quietened you down?

TOYAH: No! (laughs) It's making me worse! NINO: Making sultry eyes at me. It's making my toes curl. I'm forgetting the next question! “Echo Beach”. Why did you cover that? TOYAH: I really don't know. I was making an album and my manager came to me and said “Oh, do a cover version. Everyone's doing cover versions.” I said, “do I really have to?” I wanted to do a Sex Pistols one originally and they said, “No, that won't make it as a single”. I said, “Well, why not "Echo Beach"? because it was when pop became an art form People like Blondie and Martha And The Muffins made pop a respectable item. It's a three minute work of art. It was kind of the Andy Warhol thing. I just thought I'll do "Echo Beach" - bring it up into '87 because it's almost 10 years old as a song, and just wanted to bring it into the computer age NINO: Before we have a look at "Echo Beach" - once you finish "Cabaret" will you go on the road and do tours and PA's in Europe? TOYAH: I want to be on the road as soon as possible NINO: Good, wonderful. So that means you've got no plans TOYAH: No plans except I'm going to do it. It doesn't involve anyone else (laughs) NINO: We'll have a look now at "Echo Beach". This is you ripping up all your old publicity shots Watch the interview HERE *= Musicians' Union Strike 1987

[toyahinterviews]

TOYAH ON TISWAS ATV 14.3.1981

HOST SALLY JAMES: Hello and a special welcome on this extremely chaotic morning to Toyah. Hello, Toyah! TOYAH: Hello SALLY: I apologize for all the noise and bedlam going on over there TOYAH: Oh, it's wonderful SALLY: You have such an interesting career, Toyah, because you're in the charts at the moment with - TOYAH: Surprisingly with “It's A Mystery”, yeah SALLY: And you also very highly recognised as an actress. How do you manage to combine the two careers? TOYAH: I don't (laughs) I just sort of try and do as much as possible. I divide my year half and half. Half acting, half singing. Simple as that SALLY: Is there one side that you enjoy more than the other? TOYAH: The acting I find easier to do. The music side, there's a big strain on you. It's much more of a strain SALLY: You started off on the acting side, didn't you? TOYAH: Oh, yeah, (puts on a posh voice) National Theatre SALLY: Did you sort of fall into the music thing by accident?

TOYAH: No, I always intended from about the age of nine to become like Mark Bolan or David Bowie in my own right. Yeah, I was one of those star struck kiddies SALLY: You always knew that you were going to be an entertainer?

TOYAH: Oh, I hoped I would've been, yeah

SALLY: It's very difficult, isn't it, in this business. People do tend to pigeonhole you and you're either an actress or a singer or a presenter or whatever. It's very difficult to be accepted on more than one level. How do you think you've managed to crack that? TOYAH: I don't really think I'm accepted for all three. I've got certain critics that love my acting, certain critics that hate my music, and certain critics that hate my presenting. I've just kept them separate

I wouldn't want to do something like a major rock movie, because I'd have to be myself then and I'm trying not to be myself. I'm trying to act

SALLY: Do you think it might get to the stage where you are going have to channel yourself more into one of the three areas?

TOYAH: Yes, I do, but I'm fighting it SALLY: Let's talk about the musical side, because that's going extremely well. You're in the studio doing an album at the moment I gather

TOYAH: Yes

SALLY: And you're planning quite an exciting tour? TOYAH: We've got a world tour coming up, and we'll be in England for May and June. We're playing bigger venues because we want the young kids to get in. The old tour sold out and a lot of people were turned away

But also, I'm making movies, like videos, that I want to show behind the band. So it's a very sort of 3D show. Everyone will be satisfied. The people at the back will be satisfied and the people at the front will be satisfied SALLY: You're starting work on that now? TOYAH: Yes, I'm hoping it will work

SALLY: The other thing that always causes a lot of interest about you is the fashion. Can you stand up so people can see this great outfit that you're wearing (Toyah stands up) Also, of course, the terrific hair and coloring and makeup and everything. Do you devise the way you look yourself, or do you have designers and people that help you? TOYAH: I've got a designer called Melissa Caplan who's very well known in London. She's my major influence on fashion. She's wonderful. And there's another man - I wear his day clothes and he's called Willie Brown. I call them cubist designers because they just do these bizarre clothes that you wouldn't see people in the street wearing  SALLY: I don't think you would (Toyah laughs) What about the makeup and hair? I mean, you shaved your head once, didn't you? TOYAH: I shaved it for a movie where I had to play this sort of revolutionary, this pyromaniac that went round setting fire to everything ("Mad" in "Jubilee" 1978). So I shaved my head for that but … (to somebody our of shot) Shut your face. But otherwise I like my hair to change color under lights. Yellow and red are usually pretty good. They turn into amazing electric blues SALLY: Well, you look terrific today. I actually hate to have to do this to you, Toyah, but it's a special request on behalf of your dad (slams a cream pie in Toyah's face) Sorry about this. I'm sorry but her dad said to do it to her! Watch the interview HERE

[toyahinterviews]

TOYAH ON BBC RADIO SCOTLAND AFTERNOONS WITH MICHELLE MCMANUS 13.2.2025 

MICHELLE: I am so excited for my first guest today. She is iconic. Toyah Willcox is an artist that has continued to reinvent herself in the UK entertainment and music for decades, pushing the boundaries of success She is a singer. She is an actress, an author, a composer and a performer, and a beloved household name that has won numerous awards and recognition over the span of a hugely impressive career This February Toyah joins the cast of "NOW That's What I Call A Musical" as a guest star. The show comes to the Edinburgh Playhouse from the 25th of February up until the first of March. Here is a recent snippet of what's in store Plays a clip of the songs in the show MICHELLE: How amazing does that sound? Just a wee taste ahead of the show coming to Edinburgh. I'm delighted to say I'm joined now by the iconic Toyah Willcox. Hello, Toyah! TOYAH: Hello, Michelle. How are you? MICHELLE: I am so wonderful and I'm all the better for speaking to you. Toyah, we're so excited to have you on the show TOYAH: Oh, thank you so much. I'm going to have a week in Edinburgh and I can't wait

MICHELLE: We cannot wait. We are hoping, Toyah, that the weather will stay dry for you. It's been a bit of a hit and miss up here. But listen, who cares? Because you're coming, and also you're a guest star in the most fabulous show - but people are coming just to see you alone. This show has been so hugely successful. You must love coming into a production like this? TOYAH: Oh, it's absolutely perfect for someone like me. Every town has a different guest star. So as you know I'm doing Edinburgh, but I was in Hull last week rehearsing the show and doing the dress rehearsal, ready for me to be in Edinburgh, and Sinitta was the guest star in Hull. It's just so wonderful.

It's such a reveal. It's a very dramatic and a funny reveal for all of us. The scene is very funny because "Gemma", played by Nina Wadia, is praying to a poster of her 80s idol asking for help. And then suddenly one of these idols comes through the wall and gives her advice. It's not always the advice you want to hear (Michelle laughs) but it's very funny MICHELLE: But such a moment in the show, right? And such an era for music. You know that better than anyone, right? Probably the best, I would say, in terms of just how diverse the music was and how it really changed the landscape of music as well during that period I think in 2025 it's lovely to have a show like this, Toyah, because it's such a trip down memory lane. It's nostalgia, it's escapism. It must be really lovely and I'm sure you'll experience that the audience are just so on your side and everyone's there for a party TOYAH: It's very much a party atmosphere. We all have our unique memories for every song that's on, whether it's Spandau Ballet, Simple Minds, Trevor Horn or ABC. We all have our unique memories. The thing is - 80s music was storytellers music, and the lyrics fit so beautifully within this very well crafted play. It is a musical, but it's also a play, and the performers sing so well

My goodness Nina is a fabulous singer. Sam Bailey is a wonderful singer. My gosh, her voice is huge! It's so exciting! Sam was talking to me in Hull and she said “you know that I was a prison officer?” and I said "no, I just thought you're an all time singer" (Michelle laughs) because her voice is so big! MICHELLE: She's such a lovely person. We did “Celebrity Pointless” (a quiz show) together because we are both from singing reality shows, and we actually got all the way. I'd never met her before, and obviously we just met in the green room before we went in. She's a powerhouse when it comes to singing I think that's the calibre and that's why the show's so good, right? Because of the ensemble. I think that works for someone like you because you are an icon stepping into this as a guest star. You know that you're walking into a great ensemble and a great show, because everyone loves that era of music. It's real nostalgia for the “NOW” albums. They're celebrating 40 years or something like that So I think it's so multi-layered, right? That people are coming along to see the show for a variety of different reasons. For us in Edinburgh I think we've hit the jackpot that you're going to be in the show. We're so excited!

TOYAH: I've definitely hit the jackpot. It's one of my favorite cities in the world. And I must add this musical is choreographed by Craig Revel Horwood MICHELLE: Your "Strictly" ("Strictly Come Dancing") buddy! TOYAH: Yeah, well, I don't know if I'm buddies with any of the judges (Michelle laughs) They gave me a hard time, but the choreography on the musical is breathtaking! It's made me forgive Craig Revel Horwood for all of his meanness MICHELLE: But you know it's complete pantomime. Because with "Strictly" we forget it's one the biggest shows on telly in terms of Saturday night. Everyone round the telly, family viewing. The way we stream now, the way we watch now - whether it's the way we listen to radio or watch TV - is so different. I feel "Strictly" still takes us back to a place of that kind of Saturday night We know all the drama that goes on but they all secretly love you guys. We all sit and watch in awe because you think you could do something like that but I don't think people quite understand it's the dedication, it's the work, it's the Monday to Friday stuff. Just trying to learn these routines. I don't think anyone quite realises just how much it takes out of you TOYAH: I loved it! I loved the rehearsal room. It was just me, Neil Jones, and we all had a psychologist sit with us in case we needed to talk, but we had so much fun. We worked so hard, but I really loved it. I have always loved immersing myself in my work, and this was one of those very special jobs

I adored it and I really hated coming off. I think all the celebs will tell you when we were voted off it was really painful. None of us wanted to come off. Chris McCausland thought he'd be off in the first week and he was begging to be off and look at the journey he made. He was outstanding MICHELLE: We spoke to him just a few days after his win and I ended up crying. He ended up crying. He was saying "people are coming up to me and pouring their heart out and saying "do you know what you did for me being on a show like that because of someone in my family"". He was so extremely brave to go and do something like that And then we all talk about that journey, right? For him to go that distance and to be able to do what he did - he's just so used to making people laugh as a comedian, but really having to open up that emotional side of him and being very vulnerable and without having the jokes beside him. He was still blown away literally a couple of days after he won It was a really special series last year and every single celebrity contributed to that. Also who doesn't want to wear sequins constantly, Toyah, and look so gorgeous and glamorous and get to dance with professionals

TOYAH: I would like to tell you that I'm wearing a "Strictly" outfit on “NOW That's What I Call A Musical,” but I'm not. I'm wearing something I have never worn the likes of before, and I really like it

MICHELLE: Well, don't tell us anymore because we're going to buy tickets to come see it, right? So we don't want to give too much away. I love the fact how control you are of your career. It's really empowering actually to see when you're releasing music, making videos. But I also love the “Toyah At Home” (above) stuff as well.

I think COVID changed everything. Look at us - we're talking right now down the line. We're not actually in a studio with each other. We changed. The fact that when COVID hit everybody we started to communicate with each other directly through the wonders of the internet That really was a lifesaver for a lot of people, and a way for folk to connect when they weren't able to leave the house. But you've been going from strength to strength to strength with us, because you really do keep up to date with the fans on a weekly basis TOYAH: It's been a phenomenal few years. As social media went through the roof in lockdown, and my husband and I - we've been married for 39 years -

MICHELLE: Congratulations! TOYAH: Thank you. We've never had more than about three months together consecutively (Michelle laughs), and suddenly we were in a house together. I think our social media helped both of us deal with not being able to perform. Both of us were bereft that we couldn't perform for our audiences, and social media was the next best thing

So we went from 100 000 views in our first week up to 133 million last August (Michelle laughs) It's growing and growing. We think what's happening is that the world is seeing us as their favorite grandparents. They wish their grandparents were perhaps as off the wall and kooky as we are, because there's a definite fondness of us - which we really like MICHELLE: I'm sure people do not think of you anywhere close to being a grandparent. You look far too phenomenal for that. Social media and influencers are all very young. They're going for a certain audience in their 20s and their 30s But I think there's a whole group of people online that are 40-50 plus and they aren't really being paid attention to. You're so smart to do this with your husband and opening yourself up. I think there's a whole group of people in that age range upwards who want that content

TOYAH: Men want it too. I think there's a whole audience of, as you say, 45 upwards that want representation but they also want verification of who and what they are. We know an awful lot of women watch and get their husbands to watch and the women are saying “I want a husband like Robert Fripp” (Michelle laughs) I think men are doing the same with their wives. It represents something that you don't see much of on TV and that's happy elderly people MICHELLE: Surely there's a production company out there - it would be a genius move to put that on TV, right? You're talking about 130 odd million views online. That is a gift waiting to be handed to the right production company TOYAH: I agree. We had a camera crew following us for the whole of 2023 but they've gone off on another project. We're thinking "you've got to come back soon, because we might not be around much longer". They don't want to miss the ending! MICHELLE: I actually think there'll be such a want for that kind of content. You've already proved that because people actually have to go and find content online. It's not just delivered to them the way that they'll get it through terrestrial TV or even the streaming platforms People have to go to a lot of effort to find that. People naturally want to see you guys and to see what you do. So you can imagine if that was more readily available on TV. I'm telling you, Toyah, you're going to be on your new TV show within a year

TOYAH: BBC Scotland are very welcome to sign us up! MICHELLE: I would love to see the big bosses listen to me, Toyah. You and I both know that will not be the case (Toyah laughs), but if they are listening - we have got great studios up here and a great production arm of the BBC. So I think someone's missing a trick there. Toyah, it has been such a joy to speak to you. We're so excited you're coming to Edinburgh. Have the best time in this musical. It sounds fantastic TOYAH: It's lovely. It's a wonderful night out. It's very funny and the music is fantastic. I cannot wait. So thank you, Michelle

MICHELLE: An absolute pleasure. The icon that is Toyah Willcox will be joining the cast of "NOW That's What I Call A Musical" as a very special guest star in the Edinburgh Playhouse from the 25th of February until the first of March. That will be a great night Listen to the interview HERE

[toyahinterviews]

TOYAH ON ITV THIS MORNING WITH RICHARD AND JUDY APRIL 1994

A clip from “The Ink Thief” plays RICHRAD MADELEY: (Toyah howls like a dog in the video) You're a bit carried away there TOYAH: Sorry! JUDY FINNIGAN: It's a new series called “The Ink Thief” TOYAH: Yes, with Richard O'Brien playing the "Ink Thief". I'm a dog (below) JUDY: So you're all animals? TOYAH: Yes, we're all kind of half-dog, half-animal, half-human. We all have the ability to speak and act RICHARD: Did you get a choice about which animal you were going to be? TOYAH: (laughs) I was involved with the creative talks at the beginning. We thought a dog would be very funny for me, being kind of considered a glamorous rock and roll singer. “Toyah's a dog!” JUDY: I think you've got a feline face. More of a cat face TOYAH: I have played a cat. Animals seem to be my speciality. I was a cat with Dawn French in “Little Pig Robinson”, many years ago in the film. Dawn was playing a pig along with Jennifer

JUDY: I'm going talk a bit more about this new series but talking about this whole body image thing, which Dawn has. She's really really got her teeth into it. She's really going for it

TOYAH: Quite right

JUDY: And good for her. Absolutely. We're talking about body image and binging and starving in the phone-in today. You used to do that?

TOYAH: I think every young woman, when she first becomes aware of men and fashion, starves herself. I went on my first diet when I was about 12, and it was hugely successful. I looked brilliant, and I only lost about six pounds. But then I'd say I spent right up till the age of 27 starving myself

I mean, not dramatically. There was certainly no throwing up, nothing like that. But being very food conscious I think it's incredibly boring. I'm 35 now, and I don't give a damn. I'm very proud of how I look. I don't know the name of the guest earlier ...?

JUDY and RICHARD: (a model) Dandida (?)

TOYAH: I think the fashion world has a lot to answer for. I really do

RICHARD: Do you think it might change now? I don't mean this year or even next? I was saying earlier to Candida - one's heard these random conversations and random articles, but they do seem to be coming together now into a general and more organised backlash against the fashion industry. Do you think it's happening?

TOYAH: I don't think so much a backlash. It's probably a backlash against prices of clothes and very thin models. But I think it's about self-confidence and self-confidence has nothing to do with your body size. It's to do with you

RICHARD: It shouldn't have anything to do with it JUDY: What stopped you? When you say that this went until you were 27 - you're 35 now. What made you stop starving yourself?

TOYAH: Self-confidence, truly finding my own voice without being influenced by others. And an absolute passionate love of food (Richard laughs) My emotional and social life is based on food. I love it!

JUDY: But you're not at all plump. What do you do? Do you work out a lot?

TOYAH: I'd probably never be seen modelling clothes because of my body size. I'm broad, I'm healthy and I'm stocky, but I have a high pressured life. It's a fast life, and I think that helps me keep things down. Alcohol and chocolate are deadly. I think you do have to make a few compromises and they're out the window

RICHARD: You don't drink at all or just the odd glass of wine?

TOYAH: The odd whiskey once a week, but that's about it - and it's a real treat

JUDY: But otherwise you more or less eat what you want?

TOYAH:Totally, yes

RICHARD: Let's go back to this kid's program and talk about kids programmes in general. What do you think about this debate going on about videos and the influence on kids? Do you think they influence them?

TOYAH: Ooh, you're really getting me answer heavy subjects this morning

RICHARD: Yeah, let's do. Let's talk about it

TOYAH: I am passionate about protecting children. Really passionate about it. I think potential for good and evil is in all of us, right through our lives. At some point in our lives we're educated to choose the right thing - basically good. I think that that time happens in our life before puberty

I feel bewildered sometimes that we allow children to view death as an act of mankind rather than an act of God. When you see continual news and video games where you're killing things or killing people, it kind of numbs your emotions towards human suffering. I think that's unhealthy. I think a child should be protected from all that purely by the love of a parent or parents

JUDY: I also think that people often make analogies with cartoons, don't they? They say well, kids watch cartoons where cats and mice batter each other over their head. It doesn't matter. Well, of course it doesn't matter because they're not human beings, and they know that's a drawing. It's not the same thing at all

TOYAH: Yes, but children go through stages. There's the toilet stage, where they're absolutely obsessed with anything to do with the toilet. Then there's the death stage that comes around the age of eight

I think you've got to be very protective of those stages and very honest with children, but not blatantly letting them see people who've been murdered and splattered. You have to guide them. I think that's our role as adults

RICHARD: I think in the last 20 years, speaking as a society, we haven't been guiding them at all. It's been this liberal view that they should be allowed to watch more or less what they want within certain limits

JUDY: It's the availability of videos. We were talking with our older boys the other day about these new guidelines that there'll be tougher fines, tougher penalties for video rental shops if they rent videos to younger kids

I don't think the problem is that at all, and neither do they. They have problems renting 18+ videos anyway. The problem is that when the adults get them and leave them lying around the house

TOYAH: Yes

RICHARD: The other thing is, just thinking back to your show, the kind of kids television. Kids television, when I was a kid, basically had a strong moral content. If you watch "The Woodentops" (a UK kids programme 1955-1973), haha, let's have a laugh at "The Woodentops". But there was a moral content to it Most of the stories had some kind of moral dimension, which, in a very simple way show children that if you were nasty and cruel to the dog, then the dog might suffer. And therefore it was nasty TOYAH: We're in such a technical age and things are available to children and children are incredibly intelligent. (For example) their knowledge of computers. I have no knowledge of computers, but a child has. That is accessing them to an incredible wealth of knowledge RICHARD: That they're probably too young to understand

TOYAH: Yes, and this is probably really dramatic, but some computer systems have a pornography thingie you can access. A child will find that no problem at all

JUDY: Your new series looks very innocent. Is it?

TOYAH: It's absolutely crazy. "The Ink Thief" is this character who can absorb print off the page. He's timeless, he can time travel. All the animals around him are called "Bumps" and we have to guide him

Richard O'Brien's character goes off the rails and starts absorbing print to become human, to become powerful, rather than to create the future. So we're all these really mad creatures trying to save the world JUDY: When does it start? TOYAH: It starts at the end of May on ITV RICHARD: What time does it go out?

TOYAH: 4.25 RICHARD: Series of seven?

TOYAH: Series of seven. Rock and roll, half cartoon, half drama. It uses all - RICHARD: Mixed with animation and all that kind of -?

TOYAH: Yeah

JUDY: Sounds like a lot of fun. And you're singing for us at the end of the show your new single “Now And Then” ?

TOYAH: Yes. I'm on the road at the moment, and “Now and Then” is the single out on the third of May

RICHARD: OK, there it is. Toyah's singing a new single “Now And Then” at the end of the programme. You can catch the new series soon on ITV. Nice to see you again, as always

TOYAH: Good to see you

Watch the interview HERE

[toyahinterviews]

TOYAH ON SUMMER SUNDAY ITV TV-AM WITH HENRY KELLY 19.7.1987

HENRY KELLY: It's 19th of July. I'm sorry it's a bit wet where we are in London, and it's not too good around the rest of the country, but we are delighted to bring a ray of sunshine into our studio and into your breakfast The star guest of this morning, a lady who was once described as a punk rock rebel turned classical actress, and as a woman of 100 hair colors and countless chameleon disguises - it's Toyah Willcox. Who else would it be? TOYAH: Good morning HENRY: Good morning. A Birmingham girl and another Birmingham girl here with us every week CO-HOST SALLY: We've both worked quite hard getting over it, I think TOYAH: (they all laugh) Escaping HENRY: And of course, Anne Diamond (another TV-Am host) is a Birmingham girl TOYAH: There's nothing really bad about Birmingham I think but I love London. I went to school in Edgbaston. That's where you were born? SALLY: No, I went to school in Edgbaston as well HENRY: Did you? You didn't go to the same school by any chance? TOYAH: No, we didn't SALLY: A few years apart, of course. I think our schools may have played hockey or something TOYAH: Oh, you bet. I'm vicious at hockey! (laughs) HENRY: Did you play hockey at school? TOYAH: Yes, I was always put in goal because I was fearless SALLY: I played goal as well TOYAH: You get your stick and you just run at them and go grrrrh! (laughs) No one dare come near you HENRY: Toyah, what sort of childhood and schoolgirlhood did you have in general?

TOYAH: I went to public school. I loathed every minute. I found it criminal to be put in a uniform so early and to lose your identity and your individualism. I'm all for individualism in childhood. That should be developed, and artistic things should be developed, and creative things should be developed. I didn't have that kind of upbringing, so it was frustrating

HENRY: But they do say, and there's a point in it, surely, that children are not always capable of the correct expression of individualism and artistry and you put children in a uniform rather than let them separate too early?

TOYAH: Yes, when you give children technique. I think at some point we all need to learn technique. I wasn't capable of learning technique until I was about 18 onwards, and now, as a 29 year old, I love learning techniques, especially within theatre or within acting. As a child to be taught technique I found it like a brainwashing process

HENRY: By any stretch of the imagination you've done a heck of a lot in a very short space of time, haven't you? As I said in the intro from being a pop star, writing your own stuff, performing, acting and now at the moment in “Three Men On A Horse” TOYAH: It's great. I love it. It's got very good reviews, which is just great. It's a fabulous American comedy, and I play a moll ("Mabel", below) in it. It has a brilliant cast. It's directed by Jonathan Lynn, who wrote “Yes, Prime Minister”, which I never got to see because I was always on the road gigging at that point. But as a director he was fabulous. It's a very good show, very enjoyable show HENRY: You were interviewed once, and at the course of it you said, “I've always worn a mask. Now I'm looking for something from within” which, coming from somebody else might sound a teeny weeny bit pompous, but I don't think you could be pompous if you try. But what does it mean?

TOYAH: I think I can be pompous. I got a very big mouth and if people ask me a question I always answer it and it's always got me into trouble (laughs)

SALLY: Expression. Honesty TOYAH: I think what it was that in the beginning I was doing things with the wrong motivation. I started singing really wanting attention and really wanting personal acclaim. And now that I've gone into theatre and into the West End, which is vibrant and has a life of its own, it's allowing me to discover something a little more important than just the physical self

HENRY: But you're able to say this and not in any way diminish the achievements that you've had in the past. Or do you regret another phase of your life?

TOYAH: I see the past as history, and it's as simple as that. It's gone, and there's only the future to look to next HENRY: How excellent SALLY: Do you feel that the past has brought you to where you are now? TOYAH: Well, yeah. I think mainly the past in my personal life. The greatest lessons I've ever learned is observing my personal life and observing people around me. Work is always slightly false, because I've been in show biz for 10 years now, and you're always just put on pedestal. It's not real

The reality comes from looking at the outside world, which is why I think I like working to a live audience much better than, say, recording in a studio or something like that. I'm now aiming my life at doing more live work, i.e. stage and live work with a band, because that's real. You're in contact

HENRY: You're in an advantage too, because in a way you had a theatrical training, so that when you came to it, even having been in the pop world, nobody could turn around to you and say “oh, this is just the pop star coming in to take a good job in the field”

TOYAH: I actually started at the National Theater of all things. At the time I was so ignorant. I turned up at a National from Birmingham with a plastic bag full of sandwiches my mum had made expecting to go home the same day. I thought I'd just go for a day's rehearsals and of course I never went home again

I can remember phoning my mum up and saying “oh, Mum, I'm staying for nine months. The contract's for nine months” and she was terribly upset. I never realised the importance of the National Theater at that time

SALLY: How old were you when you went? TOYAH: I was 18 and very blinkered. I had pink hair and everyone would just stop and stare at me. It was just the beginning of punk and I thought people were staring at me because I was nice. Not because I looked stupid! (laughs)

HENRY: You didn't look stupid. You looked different

TOYAH: I was very fat as well. I terrified people HENRY: It's interesting because Sally, you were just telling me that you met somebody yesterday SALLY: I saw Emlyn Williams, and he was telling me that you were in the film “The Corn Is Green” with Katharine Hepburn (below)

TOYAH: (really taken aback) Yes! And George Cukor was directing

SALLY: It must have been staggering to have that opportunity?

TOYAH: Oh, it was wonderful! The audition for that was staggering, because again, I turned up at the audition and didn't know who Katharine Hepburn was (laughs) I was like “hi, how are you?” and I made her a cup of tea. George Cukor was there, and I had a wig on, because I was at National Theater, and my real hair color was red at that time. I knew I wouldn't get the job if I went with red hair

At midnight that same day, George Cukor phoned me and said “you've got the job. Well done. Out of 2000 people. This is it. We're going to make you big star" and all that. The next day I went in without the wig, and George Cukor asked me if I'd like to take my hat off

I said “it's not a hat. It's my hair”. Katharine Hepburn loved it. She thought it looked like feathers and it did. It was in terrible condition. It really did look like feathers

HENRY: It's wonderful to see you in such a bubbly form, and obviously enjoying yourself. We're going to have time to talk to you as the morning goes on, and we'll look at the papers together

Later in the show

HENRY: Are you a Sunday newspaper person? I mean do you get the whole big pile of them?

TOYAH: No, usually sleep on Sundays. It's the only time I get to sleep. I enjoy the trash papers, I'm afraid. I just go through News Of The World in hysterics

HENRY: We tend to call them the more popular dailies TOYAH: Well, I don't mean trash trash. I mean it's just blatant good fun, really. I usually get The Observer if I feel like being intelligent. But I must say on Sundays I'm completely blitzed HENRY: You prefer to be windswept

SALLY: Toyah, I was wondering, have you ever done a summer season (of theatre)?

TOYAH: I haven't done a summer season, but I've done a variety show a bit like Les' (Les Dennis) new one. It was for a National Youth Day in Devon. We followed (on stage) the local conjurer, and Frankie Howard followed us

My husband and I came on and did this rock concert in the middle of a variety show. We got all these old'ish people up and bopping. It was very good fun

Watch the interview HERE

[toyahinterviews]

TOYAH ON BBC1 WOGAN WITH SUE LAWLEY 16.4.1986

SUE LAWLEY: Somewhere along the line this actress turned singer turned actress lost her surname so I shall simply ask you to welcome Toyah! They tell me you're changing your image. Is this it?  TOYAH: No, I'm not deliberately changing my image. I think image should change very six months (Sue and the audience laugh) I think it's nice to consciously look in the mirror and think right! You're out! Next one's in I usually find I change my image when I learn something and I'm a great believer in learning all the time so I change with my image. I wouldn't change my image whoomph - that's it, it's going to be changed like that forever I'm just 10 years older than when I first started in the business and I've just gone through many many many changes (laughs) SUE: What's this one called? TOYAH: This one's just .. I don't know. It's very Cleopatra. This is an old dress. A friend of mine made it called Melissa Caplan. I've never actually worn it. It's just a Cleopatra dress. It's made out of leather and suede SUE: And the hair has changed colour? TOYAH: Yes. I haven't actually dyed my hair since last summer. I've let it fade naturally - SUE: This is its natural colour? TOYAH: No, it's bleached (they all laugh) It comes out of a bottle! I bleach my hair. My natural colour is black and it's yuck! Poo! Horrible! I don't like it!

SUE: It would suit the Cleopatra -

TOYAH: I find that black hair when you're a midget doesn't help at all! (Sue and the audience laugh) The lighter colour hair make me look taller

SUE: The way they (the research team) talked to me about you – I thought you were going to be quite different. That you've changed. You're obviously still exactly - you're Toyah TOYAH: Well, I'm still me. I did a film last year with Christopher Lee ("The Disputation", 1986) where I played his mistress. I went to see an agent at the same time and she said “oh, you're never going to act looking like that! It's your hair”. What I usually do when I'm acting I wear a wig so my hair and myself doesn't get in the way SUE: But you're off the booze. You're off the coffee

TOYAH: What do you mean I'm off the booze?! (laughs and pretends to down a drink, the audience laughs)

SUE: (inaudible under the audience laughter) … You've stopped?

TOYAH: When I was much younger and going through some dreadful times at school - I mean real frustration! - I used to drink when I went to school. Now I curb the drinking to Christmas or Easter or birthdays. But I do drink

SUE: It's getting to sound very middle aged if you're off the booze …

TOYAH: (laughs) Do you know what my ambition is? I want to be 40. I think 40 in this day and age is perfect! (Sue lifts up her collar as to say “yes, I'm 40") (the audience laughs) It's wonderful! No, I don't think age comes into it. It's the mental attitude

Some people are obviously trapped within a system and if you can escape that system age never comes into it. I mean look at the Queen Mother! She's fabulous! Look at Barbara Cartland! She's fabulous! Age doesn't come into

SUE: Look at Peter Ustinov (also guest on the show, Sue gestures backstage) You've met him. He's terrific, isn't he? TOYAH: Yes! SUE: Now, you come from Birmingham which is where I come from (puts on a funny accent) Edgbaston

TOYAH: (puts on a very posh accent) Oh, yes

SUE: Not (in a posh accent) Edg-baston

TOYAH: (in a posh accent) Edge-baston SUE: Is that your parents called it? Edg-baston

TOYAH: I think they called Edg-baston. I called it (puts on a common accent) Edgbaston (the audience laughs)

SUE: What happened to the accent? Did you have an accent?

TOYAH: I went to public school and I actually came out of public school (puts on a posh accent) talking like this (the audience laughs) I found that being me with my energy talking like that didn't help me. It didn't get me anywhere

I like people with a lot of life and a lot of vitality and those people have accents! So of course I picked up the Brummie (Birmingham) accent. I moved down to London and I naturally picked up Cockney SUE: (in a mock accent) Cockney

TOYAH: (in a mock accent) Cockney (in her normal accent) I'm one of these people that naturally adsorbs accents. I absorb mannerisms too which can be very embarrassing, especially when you're with Americans (the audience laughs, Toyah looks sheepish) SUE: What do Americans do that we shouldn't do?

TOYAH: (laughs) No, I'm not answering! (the audience laughs) SUE: But all the time the lisp remains?

TOYAH: Oh, I've tried everything to get rid of this lisp!

SUE: Why do you want to get rid of it?

TOYAH: Because I hate it! (laughs) SUE: But it's you

TOYAH: I haven't noticed that I have a lisp but people remind me about it (pretends to be annoyed) SUE: I'm sorry (makes a sorry face, the audience laughs) Lisp or no lisp they tell me you're a millionaire

TOYAH: Oh, really?!

SUE: Yes. Are you not?

TOYAH: Well, you know the saying “rich bitch”? (the audience laughs) SUE: Mmm (agrees) TOYAH: Well, I think I'm a bitch but I don't know about the millionaire (Sue and the audience laugh)

SUE: Everybody's avoiding my questions tonight …

TOYAH: I wonder why!

SUE: We shall read it all in the silences. Do you need to be famous?

TOYAH: Oh, dear! I need fulfilment. I need to be appreciated. I think when you spend time on work – whatever your work is – it needs to be appreciated. I believe what everyone is needed within the system. Everyone is needed for the job that they do and everyone needs a pat on the back every now and then

SUE: But fame is something beyond all of that. I mean any woman could say she needs to be appreciated, she needs to be loved, she needs to be told. But you actually need to be famous (makes a “look at me” gesture), don't you?

TOYAH: (laughs) I've never looked at it that way! Fame is so fictitious. I know people who think they're famous but they are not and they behave like they are

When I'm walking down the street I must admit I wear dark glasses and a woolly hat and I kind of walk like this (with her head down)

I think that's purely because of the privilege of walking down the street is something very rare when you're famous. Fame's nice. I just like working. I'm a workaholic

SUE: There's a price of course to fame. I was just talking to Cecil Parkinson – that kind of kiss and tell, which you've suffered from recently TOYAH: I wouldn't say I've suffered from it. I read it. I had to read it for kind of law reasons. If you read between the lines the quotes that came from my ex were very kind. He didn't say anything nasty

I don't hate the man but The Sun needed to sell their paper. Simple as that (the audience laughs) They're not going to sell by hearing a story about me being a saint. There's no hard feelings SUE: Terrific. Smashing to hear it. And you're engaged now anyway and life is wonderful and happy? TOYAH: Yes SUE: Terrific. Toyah, thank very much indeed

TOYAH: Thank you

Watch the interview HERE

[toyahinterviews]

TOYAH ON ITV THIS MORNING WITH RICHARD AND JUDY SEPTEMBER 1992

RICHARD MADELEY: She's continued to pack a punch both on stage and on screen, and now she says she's mellowed and matured, and I know she has. Welcome, Toyah TOYAH: (laughs) I'm not mellow or mature. That's a wrong accusation! RICHARD: Aren't you? Oh, good! Say something shocking (Toyah laughs) No, we'll move on to that in a minute, but let's talk about this play you're in. It's interesting when you reach a point of style and an influence, like you have in your career, you can actually do things that you want to do. And it was about five years ago you read this Doris Lessing book TOYAH: Yes, “Memoirs Of A Survivor” RICHARD: And you thought "I want to do that as a play" and now you are TOYAH: Yeah. It's taken a long time, though. I was looking for a project for a one-woman show, and this was the first ever Doris Lessing I wrote - RICHARD: Read, dear. Read. TOYAH: Oh! (pretends to shoot herself in the head) JUDY FINNIGAN: Megalomania! TOYAH: Sorry, Doris! (they laugh) I thought she just gave women such an incredible spiritual identity and voice. I met Richard Osborne, who's the adapter, and we went along to Doris Lessing and her agent said, “why do you want to do this?” and I said "because she gives women great spiritual identity" Doris Lessing went “what a load of rubbish! No, that's not what this book's about at all.” But it's now a two-hander. It's not a one-woman show. There's another actress with me called Joan McInnis, and it's an incredible story

JUDY: But very hard to do I would have thought, because Doris Lessing started off being very well known for her novels about her childhood in South Africa. They have become more and more science fiction based, fantasy based. It is quite a mystical novel. It's very hard to put on stage

TOYAH: Terribly metaphoric. The story starts with a woman looking out of her window, watching the world fall apart. Basically, there's a holocaust going on -

RICHARD: Collapse of society as we know it

TOYAH: Collapse of society. Children aren't being educated. They're living in the underground system, murdering each other, cannibalising each other, and especially cannibalising the older people. And this woman, in her desperation to find out what's going on with life, has a fantasy world

Basically, she walks through the wall into a utopian world and sees life how it really can be. She sees why she is the woman today, because of who her parents were and how she was treated. So you've got all these multi-layered stories going on

JUDY: That's at Salisbury Playhouse. I know it's going well and good luck with it. But in terms of the woman you are today, you were in Anthony Clare's program a while ago, revealing all about your own childhood. At some point you had a terribly difficult relationship with your mother, didn't you?

(Read the transcript of "In The Psychiatrist's Chair" (BBC Radio 4) HERE)

TOYAH: Yes, but I think it's a very common difficulty. My mother won't quite talk to me about it still. Sorry mum

JUDY: I don't blame her

TOYAH: My father says that they thought I was a delightful child. They seem to have forgotten the fact that I invited 60 Hells Angels round for tea when they asked where I kept disappearing to at the weekends and stuff like that. I just didn't enjoy the institution of school, and really just wanted to be out in the big wide world at a very early age RICHARD: Was there a gentle transition then (Toyah snorts) from that interesting adolescence to what you are now? Or did it just go quickly to you wake up one morning and think “oh, enough of that. I think I'll be sort of normal like everybody else”

TOYAH: No, it takes a long time. Whatever happens in your childhood scars you in some way. My childhood was no different from any other adolescent's childhood

RICHARD: What were the big scars for you then? TOYAH: Mainly school. I just couldn't stand school. I couldn't make anyone understand how I loathed being at school

RICHARD: Why? What was wrong with it?

TOYAH: I just felt as if no one recognised my true ability. I was definitely born to be an actress and performer, and school does not cater for that. I should have been in the stage school. I just found everything really frustrating

Stuff maths! Stuff reading! I just wasn't interested. I was a very pig-headed person and just misbehaved. I did everything I could possibly do to disrupt the order of what was going on JUDY: Did you sort of take that out on your parents very much? The story of your mother turning up at the school play to cheer you on and smile, and then you really went for her afterwards

TOYAH: Well, it was terrible. I'm not proud of that

RICHARD: Of course not

TOYAH: My mother was desperate to try and understand me, and I was desperate that she couldn't. I really was. I just didn't want any form of love and affection

RICHARD: Do you think if you hadn't gone to an ordinary school, if you had, as you say, gone to a stage school, you would have been different? You would have actually gotten on better with your parents and better with the world in general?

TOYAH: Who knows?

JUDY: Most people think stage schools are a bit of a … not an abomination exactly, but I think most parents - and you haven't got any children of your own yet - but I would hate the idea of sending my child to a stage school. I would feel it somehow was encouraging them to -

TOYAH: I think my parents were trying to protect me

JUDY: From doing it? TOYAH: Yes. I went to the best school in Birmingham. A public school, all girls school for ladies (laughs)

JUDY: So you should have turned out (to be) a lady (laughs)

TOYAH: I should've turned out wonderful!

JUDY: Something went wrong RICHARD: Why did you go on the Anthony Clare program? He really gets under the skin

TOYAH: I was intrigued

RICHARD: To see if you could beat him? To see if you could hold your own?

TOYAH: I tried. You can't beat that guy. He's just too astute. If you try and put a veil over something, he just keeps going at it. I was absolutely intrigued and I like challenges RICHARD: Are glad you did it? Because you did reveal a lot about yourself TOYAH: I'm indifferent. I'm a public figure, and I'm indifferent about exposing myself

JUDY: That's interesting, because our phone-in today is all about the privacy and the press

TOYAH: But you see because I open my mouth so readily, the press don't bother me. I'm not trying to hide anything, so I don't get them hiding in my garden

JUDY: But you do genuinely feel you are public property? That anything they say about you - providing it's true in your life - is fair game? There's nothing you want to keep hidden?

TOYAH: There's a big difference about Anthony Clare. That's a very intelligent approach to the media. I have this thing about privacy at home. I don't like fans turning up, like we had a few girls in my garden last week

I was really offended by that. There are boundaries. But if something has an intelligent approach, I don't mind. But if it's just ... bimbo time, I'm not interested at all

RICHARD: No, but you'd still take that as part of the course. I mean, as you say you're a public -

TOYAH: You have to accept it. If you're in the firing line, you're going to get shot. It's as simple as that

JUDY: Well, that's a useful insight into our phone-in. I hope this isn't impertinent, but you did at one stage say you didn't want to have any children and in fact you were sterilised?

TOYAH: After an illness - but that is reversible JUDY: Right. And are you in the process of changing your mind now, would you actually -

TOYAH: I don't know. I don't believe in closing doors. I think to say "no" closes your whole future. So I keep everything open. To me, the idea of a perfect family is a child of your own and the rest (are) adopted

I really believe in a world where there's so many children out there without parents, and I'm wealthy - I wouldn't close the door on adoption at all RICHARD: But are you driven a little bit by the body clock ticking?

TOYAH: Oh, the body clock is a really evil thing but it's just a trickster, isn't it? JUDY: Yeah, the hormones. It would be interesting to see what kind of school you sent your kids to - if and when you do have them

TOYAH: I wouldn't. I'd be a complete anarchist (they all laugh)

JUDY: You'd know how to handle them. Thank you very much. Good luck with “Memoirs Of The Survivor”. Sounds fascinating TOYAH: Thank you

JUDY: Thanks very much indeed, Toyah. See you again sometime

Watch the interview HERE