TOYAH ON
CHANNEL 4
PROUD PARENTS
WITH HER DAD BERIC
23.10.2006

NARRATOR: Toyah Willcox is one of Britain’s most versatile performers. She first made her mark on screen in Derek Jarman's film "Jubilee". She’s acted with greats like Olivier and Hepburn and has gone from punk icon to ...

Clip from "I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here"

TOYAH: (in a lake of mud): Texas chainsaw massacre!

NARRATOR: To a reality show star

TOYAH: (in mud) It’s … hell!

NARRATOR: Toyah’s career is one any dad would be proud of

BERIC: (On his own) To suddenly find your daughter important, almost everybody in the country knows her name, it’s a thrill you can’t describe

Walking towards Beric on the boat

TOYAH: Hello there! Dad?

BERIC: Hello!

TOYAH: Hello, it’s meee!

BERIC: Hello, come aboard!

TOYAH: How are you? You alright?

BERIC: Mind you don’t slip. Yeah, I’m fine

TOYAH: Yeah, a bit muddy

BERIC: How are you?

TOYAH: Yeah, good

Sitting down at the table in the boat

TOYAH: What was I like as a child? (above, with Beric and her brother Kim)

BERIC: You were a fortunate child because you came last and therefore we had more time to spend with you. We used to watch the wrestling matches and then we’d go into the sun parlour and -

TOYAH: Wrestle! (laughs)

BERIC: I could get you down easily at first -

TOYAH: That’s rubbish!

BERIC: Second time, third time, fourth time - but you kept coming back up! And you gradually exhausted me until I was lying flat out and that's always how it ended up!

TOYAH: By then I was knackered!

BERIC: No, you were a lovely kid really …

TOYAH: But not so much when I was a teenager?

BERIC: No, no bother

On her own

TOYAH: It was a very tactile time but then when I started growing older some kind of monster hormone came into me from about the age of eleven upwards. I haven’t cuddled my mum since I was eleven

I don’t think I’ve even kissed my dad since I was eleven. I just became an absolute horror. I was brought up in a middle class family and I just rebelled against it, big time!

On his own

BERIC: We had an awful lot of fun together and you couldn’t have had a nicer child really. She likes to think she was totally evil but she wasn’t. She was just full of character

Sitting at the table

TOYAH: My elder sister and my elder brother left home, went and found work and there was just you, me and mum left. And really we had no money at all?

BERIC: No, because I lost the business you see

TOYAH: I can remember you crying on some nights … It was quite distressing for a teenager not being able to help ones' own parents which I think gave me a very strong work ethic

BERIC: Could be, could be

On his own

BERIC: I did loose a very big business, had to take a takeover bid in the end, which sort of brought my career to an end. But her career was just coming up then

On her own

TOYAH: As I was growing up and becoming more rebellious, my parents were absolutely convinced that there was no future for me. They truly believed that I was going to end up a drug addict, an alcoholic, in prison ... everything that a parent doesn’t want to have happen to their child! (laughs)

And then punk came along and I started dying my hair and wearing dust bin liners and just disappearing for weeks on end. I think they were as worried as anyone could be. It must’ve been awful for them

SONG: I Want To be Free

Sitting at the table

BERIC: It was amazing how you went, just like a rocket, that’s how I can think of it. You had success after success. I knew you were going to make it

I was in London doing some business and there was a record shop playing out loud and I listened to it and thought “God, that’s Toyah!” We knew you were going to make it!

TOYAH: So you’d come and see me when I played Birmingham which was Birmingham Odeon …

BERIC: Yeah, that was a thrill. Thought the bloody balcony was going to collapse!

TOYAH: Why?

BERIC: Well, it was going like this (makes a heaving movement up and down) and everybody was screaming "Toyahhhh!" Just imagine, just ordinary middle class parents hearing their daughter shouted at like that

On her own

TOYAH: They were always quite concerned for me because fan behaviour back then was hysterical. I remember one incident in the Birmingham Odeon where I got mobbed and thrown to the floor and there was about 30 blokes just on top of me. My father said that was a particularly terrifying thing to see

SONG: Thunder In The Mountains

NARRATOR: By 1983 the punk princess was looking for new challenges. Acting provided them

Sitting at the table

BERIC: Do you remember when you did “Trafford Tanzi”?

TOYAH: Yeah?

BERIC: And we all came and all along those corridors to get to the Mermaid Theatre . . .

TOYAH: Yeah?

BERIC: On all the walls is “we love Toyah”-

TOYAH: Well, yeah, the fans graffitied -

BERIC: It was absolutely tremendously thrilling that was and afterwards when we went out and met the fans, you didn’t, and how wonderful they were -

TOYAH: They were incredible, there was 300 fans camping outside the theatre -

BERIC: Yeah and we went amongst them -

TOYAH: Yeah -

BERIC: Mum and dad ... and they were so nice to us

NARRATOR: Shakespearian roles followed and Toyah was even brave enough to compete in “Royal It’s A Knockout” (below with Tessa Sanderson and Stuart Hall)

But her bravery was tested most when she agreed to spend 15 days in the Australian rain forest with some the world’s most dangerous reptiles. And those were just her fellow celebrities!

On her own

TOYAH: I knew it would be a lot of adverse, quite ugly press because that’s the nature of the program

Clip from “I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here”

TOYAH: Right - I’ll do my best everyone!

EVERYBODY: Yeah, let’s go!

On her own

TOYAH: Dad told me when I got out that he came here to my main home and he watched ITV2 all day long because they had 24 hour coverage. He said he felt awful, absolutely awful seeing me eating and sleeping and living in the jungle. He said he couldn’t sleep for two weeks, it was that bad for him
Clip from “Celeb”

TOYAH: I’m not going to be killed, I’m going to make the most of this!

WAYNE SLEEP: Give us a sexy walk across the bridge!

Sitting at the table

BERIC: Well, you were obviously very ill the first week, very ill and you know you were ill because the doctors there just about saved you. We could see you going downhill

Clip from “Celeb”

ANT: For Toyah it was dirt. Obsessed by hygiene and cleanliness, tonight’s tea would be earned in hell!

Sitting at the table

BERIC: You tried so hard to get a Bush Tucker thing - whatever it was and you kept missing out

CLIP from “Celeb” (in the mud lake)

TOYAH: I can’t find these stars, where are they?!

BERIC: In the end you got one in all that mud and muck

On her own

TOYAH: I tend to think about my parents after my event. They know I’m too much of free spirit to try and control me anyway and also they know I’m a survivor

On his own

BERIC: She’s been so wonderful to her parents. She really is a very generous super kid. She’s provided all the excitement any parent could possibly expect. And as long as she’s happy, I’m happy