TOYAH ON
OCTOBUS TV
WITH ANDREW EBORN
2.6.2020

ANDREW: Welcome, it’s Andrew Eborn here and another "Lives On Lockdown". My very special guest is my wonderful chum Toyah! How are you, Toyah?

TOYAH: I’m so relieved to see you Andrew. I'm really good. Thank you.

ANDREW: I’m so relived to see you as well because I was hoping to see you live in just a couple of weeks ago with Hazel as well -

TOYAH: I know!

ANDREW: You were going to be in Islington and many other places

TOYAH: It's going to happen. What's happening at the moment is that we are trying to find ways, as you know, talking to Harvey Goldsmith, of making venues safe so the next show I've got coming up, which hasn't been announced, is a drive-in festival. Huge airport car park.

I just don't know how it's going to work as they expect the audience to stay in the cars and speakers will be delivered to the cars. Can you imagine what it's gonna be like in the summer? So I just don't know how we going move forward at the moment. But you know, I know, the promoters know we're going to do anything to make it happen as long as people are safe.

ANDREW: People have been speaking to me about doing similar drive-in movies, which is the classic way of doing it. So you are self contained or with your loved one quite close and they can deliver stuff to you as well.

I've been talking about doing holograms with that as well, all sorts of interesting things but you are without a doubt one of my favourite people, goes without saying. But also you are one of the busiest. You’re doing your movies, you’re doing your concerts, your books, your TV … How on earth have you been coping in lockdown?

TOYAH: Well, this year was going to be the pinnacle of my career and it still in many ways is. I think lockdown has been both terrifying, frustrating and quite wonderful in a very strange way for creative people, because this time last year I was so busy, I was on five movies and touring and I was thinking what would it be like to take a year off where I could sit down and write a new album, write the book I've always intended to write and I thought no. I can't do that.

I'm 62 years old. You can't take a break at my age and suddenly this break was enforced on us and it's been a very creative time. I’ve still got every one of my albums being released within the next 12 months. My success this year started, along with my failures which was not being able to play live, the release of “Toyah Solo”, the box set -

ANDREW: Brilliant box set! Beautifully produced. Wasn’t it?

TOYAH: Gorgeous. Went straight into the charts. Toyah and The Humans which is really obscure, it’s my Seattle band. That's a box set called “Noise In Your Head” out on the 3rd of July, already practically sold out and they've had to go to reprint and that's on pre-orders and then from September onwards all the first albums, all the Safari catalogue is going to be released, so my presence has been very good.

And another thing I did, Andrew, that I've always never understood and I think part of it is as a dyslexic I see images in 3D. I don't see in a flat screen, but I started in lockdown to take social media really seriously and my goodness has that really taken off! I have a wonderful social manager and a wonderful archivist who archives everything I do on toyah.net as well and I reached an international audience for the first time in my career via social media.

So the lockdown for me has been how to get through the maze. The maze of frustration, the maze of not knowing who and what you're supposed to be, but also treading very carefully because I do have a privileged life. I have a garden.

ANDREW: I know. I've seen the videos. They’re fantastic! I love it.

TOYAH: I mean how do you put that into the outside world without looking firstly “oh woe is me” because there is no “woe is me”. I've been locked up for three months as my husband is 74. We're safe. But you know, how do you share that with people and I’ve done that I think through humour and observation.

ANDREW: People around the world - I was doing some comedy in Cairo ... I was talking to some people in LA about the extraordinary situation going on there. We spoke to people in New Zealand and many many different places are approaching it in so many different ways, aren't they? And that's the confusing thing about this.

I mean, from an artist's point of view it's crazy because you're locked down and I think people are either reinventing themselves or they're getting really, really lost with this stuff. You have, as always, embraced the situation. Your social media, the videos you are posting - just brilliant! I love them.

TOYAH: I really enjoyed doing them and they started because I needed to get my husband Robert Fripp engaged with life again. There’s this phenomenon that I think has been growing where people over 70 are bit scared of life. And my husband was supposed to be on a world tour and I’ve just seen him shut himself away in a room. Admittedly, he's writing a book, but I needed him to engage with life.

So I started the films, especially the ballets which he's had huge stick for! The intellectual Robert Fripp. King Crimson. My God has he had stick for that, but it was a way of breaking down those barriers that were being inflicted on him and getting him engaged with life again and engaged with my life.

So I've got huge respect for social media but also the lockdown has allowed me to reset and what I mean by that is last year I was doing jobs where the attitude is you're an artist, you will do anything because you are an artist and what I mean by that is you turn up at venues - very few venues treating me like this ...

I mean, out of the 150 shows I do, two venues would not have backstage loos or dressing rooms. How can someone of my calibre not have a dressing room?! You can't sit at the bar! So I got rid of all of that from my diary. I’ve actually blocked people on my phone for the first time in 35 years because they just do not listen to what you need as a human being and the lockdown gave me the strength to do that.

ANDREW: It has been a sort of clearing out. We’ve re-focused as individuals. This is what's important.

TOYAH: Andrew, you’ve frozen. Can you hear me?

ANDREW: I’m frozen? I can still see you

TOYAH: Are you going to re-join?

ANDREW: So welcome back! My special guest today is the wonderful Toyah and just before the break you were telling us that the most important thing about this time is how to get rid of people and the people no longer matter in your life and all of a sudden you hung up on me and disappeared! How does make me feel? (Toyah laughs)

TOYAH: I'm so sorry about that. Whenever I do a broadcast, Andrew, I live near Worcester, they start digging up the road outside my office and disconnecting everything and I just don't know what happened then.

ANDREW: I could take the subtle hint (they both laugh) What you were also saying - how creative in this extraordinary time, you're starting this social media game, you're working with these fantastic videos, which I love, with Robert doing the ballet. King Crimson, he’s one of my favourite people. The way that he deals with people, he has such a beautiful, dry sense of humour. And the way you’ve managed to bring him out in that sort of thing is superb. I love it. Absolutely love it.

TOYAH: He's potentially a wonderful actor.

ANDREW: There you go! That would be interesting. Are you going to bring him into something?

TOYAH: Well, I don't think I’ve got that power and I don't think he has the discipline but if they ever made “10 Rillington Place” again he’d be perfect, he's got that kind of edge in what he does. As you say, it's very dry and it's beautifully subtle.

ANDREW: The two of you, when all the fans come on … “Keep walking”. He’s so brilliant at that sort of stuff, I love it.

TOYAH: I'm not like that. My husband ...you just don't cross his path. He is so clever, very good with words. Few journalists initially had a go at him for doing ballet, and my goodness did he go in for the attack. My husband is not someone to challenge because you'll get it back tenfold. Through his intellectual power rather than anything else.

ANDREW: The great thing is he's collaborated with the best in history and things like that as well, hasn't he?

TOYAH: Yeah, of course, yeah. I mean, he produced the first Peter Gabriel solo album. He's worked with Bowie, so he's really worked with a lot of very brilliant people. And he's been married to me for 34 years.

ANDREW: I have to say I know lots of showbiz relationships and yours - that length of time. What's the secret then? This will be your "Loose Women" moment. What are the secrets of such a long successful relationship?

TOYAH: I have a lot of patience. And a lot of tolerance. I think partly we both have our own careers, were not reliant on each other in any way and that's by choice. We don't even share a bank account. We do have separate homes, even though for the last 20 years we've lived mainly in one home. We have a lot of choice, so we choose to be together and I have an art studio a mile away where I go and paint and do my writing and that's kind of a no-go zone for everyone else and not many husbands can tolerate that.

I need that solitude when I'm working and I absolutely despise being in the kitchen. I wanted my husband to eat well. He's always been vegetarian, but he does eat fish now and then in lockdown we became 100% vegetarian so I wanted him to eat really well and I was spending two hours a day cooking really amazing nutritious food for him.

And I've always associated being in the kitchen with being out of work. That’s the actress in me. After three weeks I was thinking I can't tolerate this any more, so I started going to my studio and painting and just getting it out of my system. So you ask how it works, a 34 year old marriage and I think it's you need your own life.

ANDREW: And it’s respect because you're both such talents in your own right but you've complemented each other beautifully. I think coming back away from the madness out there, sometimes you come back and you’ve just got each other and its superb, isn’t it?

TOYAH: Yes, you've captured it. Exactly that. We don't have children.

ANDREW: You have a bunny rabbit. Or used to – do you still have it?

TOYAH: I lost my bunny rabbit three years ago. If anyone out there has a white albino buck with upright ears, preferably a Newzealy, which is a New Zealand one, I am desperate, desperate for a new little bunny rabbit in my life. I miss him so much, but we cannot get the pink eyed rabbits. So anyway, that's an appeal from me.

ANDREW: I tell you what - as a belated birthday present. That's another thing you did in lockdown, 18th of May is your birthday if I remember rightly?

TOYAH: Yes

ANDREW: I will make sure that we find you one because I grew up with horses and rabbits and dogs and we will find you a replacement for that one because the pictures of you together ... It's your child together, isn't it?

TOYAH: We don't have children, but any animal that comes into this house is over loved. So Robert believed that he didn't have that side of him. I knew I always had that side of me. I think animals ground us so as soon as I went against his word, then brought this tiny little - I think it was three months old, WillyFred, when we got it 10 years ago and as soon as he came into the house, my husband softened so that really helped.

But we are very good together but the one thing about my husband, answering your original question, is that he is too insular for his own good and he has a very dedicated life of just practising as much guitar a day as possible and it’s repetition.

As an artist I don't believe in repetition. I believe in building originality along with technique, but if you only have repetition you are losing part of yourself. So I think where Robert and I work together really well is I kind of suppressed the repetition that he needs as being slightly on the spectrum adult and I would say both of us are on a slight adult spectrum of adult autism, but it's only slight.

And he can see where I'm broken and I can see where he's broken and we really communicate about that, and I think that's why our relationship is possibly the only relationship either of us could ever have had. Does that make sense?

ANDREW: Totally makes sense. What’s really weird is that all of sudden as a society we’ve become obsessed with labels and the reality is there's dyslexia and autism. We've all got challenges. It's okay not to be okay. That sort of brings where people are starting to talk about things in a refreshing way and it’s encouraging others to come forward.

TOYAH: Well, I think with me I was always utterly niddled by the fact that I can actually get in a car and disappear from the world for days on end and this started when I was a teenager. I'd run away from home and just disappear and it’s haunted me as to why that means so much to me and does so much positive good to me.

I think I spent 14 years at an all girls school. I didn't really enjoy it at all, and as long as I know I can just go and I have the freedom to go I'm okay. I'm an OK person but I live for my work. I don't have holidays. I don't go to beauty spas. I don't really go shopping. I live to work. When I'm on a film set and I'm with that creative team of people and I'm one of the vital links in that chain I am a whole person.

ANDREW: Even when you've got this extraordinary situation and you have been different and it's great to be different because you stand out. Boarding school, for example, when you went to the all girls school. It was quite tough, there was bullying involved and everything, but it brought out your rebellious teenager, I think you’ve previously admitted?

TOYAH: Yeah, I was pretty awful. I had two teachers that recognised that I just shouldn't have been at that school. And I should have been in a drama school, so the one way they controlled my energy and my energy is off the scale. I mean, even at 62 it’s off the scale - 
 
ANDREW: You and me both! I love it! When we get together it’s sort of aaaggh! (they both laugh)

TOYAH: So I had an art teacher called Karen Howell who used to find me in the corridors when I been thrown out of class. Mainly maths class or geography or history and she'd bring me straight into the art room and I'd start designing the school posters for the end of year plays and then I designed the programmes.

And then I'd start designing the sets and then I designed how the play was going to be directed and there was another teacher called Shirley Williams who realised I could write poetry so she would just give me a pencil and paper and say "just go away, write poetry while you're in detention". And that's where the song “I Want To Be Free” came from. That lyric was written while I was in detention at the age of 14.

So I had two teachers at school who realised that everything in my life is based on visuals and they allowed me to develop that in a school that really was preparing its girls for higher education, for university. And I just couldn't wait to get out of the educational system. And as soon as I got out, I spent a year in drama school in Birmingham where I got spotted by two directors because I was literally the only punk rocker in the village at this time.

And after a series of magical events I ended up, at the age of 18, at the National Theatre. And those people absolutely embraced me. They gave me speech lessons to improve my lisp. I had movement lessons. I met musicians. I put my first band together. I met Derek Jarman, the film maker. There was no looking back. I suddenly fitted in with other creatives

ANDREW: And what happened? As you say, it was a lot of chance if you like. You meet one lot of creatives, they then introduce - “you must come and meet Derek”. You go round famously to his his house and you have your cup of tea with him and you sit there -

TOYAH: Adam Ant was with me on that occasion (they both laugh)

ANDREW: But even in your school days you are wonderfully mischievous and creative and it's great to hear the history of “I Want To Be Free”. Tell me the story about Maggie Thatcher when she came to visit your school?

TOYAH: Well, I was very disruptive at school. I did anything to disrupt the system. So I was disruptive in class and if I’d known how to make explosives I would’ve blown the school up. It was announced at one school assembly that the Minister of Education was going to come and give a talk to parents and teachers and pupils alike and the Minister of Education, I think this was 1972, was Margaret Thatcher.  None of us really knew that she was going to become what and who she was and I just thought this is a really, really good opportunity to really disrupt the whole day.

So I got into the school early. The school opened at about 8:50 and I got there about 8:00 in the morning and already the security were there with sniffer dogs looking for explosives because we had had bombings very close to the school. This was during the Birmingham pub bombings, and there was a news agency across the road where the soldier sadly was killed while dismantling a bomb.

And just going back to that exact time I was sitting in the window at a math’s class at the front of the school and the bomb went off 40 yards away and we weren't evacuated. So even though we saw the bomb go off and the glass in this Edwardian school is old glass, I saw it convex in over our heads. It didn't break, but everything convexed in. And we were in a bombing, so this is what that time was like. So when Margaret Thatcher came to the school, the school was highly politicised by this and there were MP’s daughters at the school. It was a really top school.

So I got in early with five alarm clocks and I set them under the school stage to go off from 3:00 PM onwards, which was when Margaret was due to speak. And the school day was normal till about 2:00 o'clock. Then we were all ushered into the big assembly hall. And there were talks. And then Margaret Thatcher came on at three and the alarm clocks went off on time and there was five of them, so they were going off at 2 minute intervals.

So Margaret Thatcher completely ignored them. But everyone knew the only person in the school that would’ve done this was me and I just had a lot of people looking at me and I was in my usual trouble. Threatened to be expelled and all of that. The weirdest thing about that - this was 72’ … by 1979 my management office was on Flood St in Chelsea and our next door neighbour was Margaret Thatcher

ANDREW: How funny! Did you go and ring on her doorbell and play ginger ("Knock, Knock, Ginger", a kids game) or something?

TOYAH: No because there were two men with guns outside the door 24 hours a day

ANDREW: But actually Maggie had great sense of humour as well. Something about them, people like Bernie Ecclestone. People who have a certain amount of power. Harvey (Goldsmith) who I was speaking to earlier.

They all have graphite exterior because they need to be … that’s the nature of the industry. They’ve got this wonderful wicked sense of humour. Robert’s the same. You’ve got to do this persona, you’ve got to do this act for everyone but at the same time one has a mischievousness about it.

TOYAH: Oh yeah, I think mischief is is part of the magical ingredient of life. I love the absurd and I love British humour and I think people that you've been talking about - the people that really stick their hands in the mess of life to keep things going. They have to have that to stay sane.

I'm an artist. I'm allowed to be vulnerable. I'm allowed to have weak moments. They are all part of my expression, but people who lead us and people who put Live Aid on ... you're talking about a different sense of humour because they just can't lose their bottle. 

ANDREW: Sometimes it’s just an act to get things done, but it is about that sort of side and what was interesting because sometimes when you're very tough on the outside it's because you've had a lot of trauma on the inside and growing up I know it was tough. You had quite a strict upbringing by your own recollection. Do you think the creative side came as a result of that sort of adversity?

TOYAH: Yes, the creative side came out because I think I was born creative. My mother was a professional dancer and she went to ballet school from the age of 11 and by the time she was twelve she was already touring in vaudeville and getting really good reviews and she used to open for Max Wall and she was married and having her first child by 19. So I inherited that gene from her. That kind of showbiz, "the show must go on" gene but I was always the brunt of everyone's jokes at home and at school, and partly that was my physicality because I had twisted spine. One leg was two inches longer than the other.

I wasn't aware of any of this. I was a tomboy and I was very, very athletic. I did ballet. I did gym, I did acrobatics. I was always breaking my teeth, breaking my bones. I was fearless but I didn't realise that part of the reason people just found me so unbelievably funny was my physicality. The lisp and all of that, and it wasn't really til I join the National Theatre that I realised the extent of the cruelty of how people found me funny. I think my drive in the very beginning from the age of 14 upwards was just simply to prove people wrong.

Now I'm just totally in love with the industry. I love what I do. I love other people's successes, other people's talents. I just dribble over the talent of J.J. Abrahams. You just look at other people and you think oh my goodness! And I’m a person that looks at someone else's success and thinks it's our success as well. What other people achieve instantly becomes available to us, so I just love the industry.

ANDREW: And you’ve always had that can do attitude. As you say it's been a combination of that drive where you’ve had tough times growing up and you rebel and you can show that creativity. But it’s also been opportunities, hasn’t it? People have taken you under their wing and taken an instant shine to you. The list of names of people you've worked with like Katharine Hepburn, who saw you with the sort of fire in your eyes. Tell us about that?

TOYAH: I was a serious punk rocker, this was about 1978 and I'd only done I think only one movie up to that point. That was Derek Jarman’s “Jubilee”. I had a wonderful agent Libby Glen. She was American, based on Arlington Street in the West End. She was the best thing that happened in my life. She was so dedicated and her mantra to me was “Toyah, can you just look normal?” (Andrew laughs) I had bright pink hair and I was 3 stone heavier than I am now.

And she phoned up one day and she said “Toyah, tomorrow you're going for an audition at Eton Place, and you're going to meet George Cukor, who's the film director and you're going to make Katharine Hepburn who is a Hollywood actress. Please could you look normal?!” So I went to the National Theatre and I borrowed my brown wig from a play called “Tales From The Vienna Woods”, adapted by Christopher Hamilton and I went along to Eaton Square with this lovely long brown wig on and I'm very small. I'm barely 5 foot tall. So I can easily pass, back then, for 13. And I met George Cukor. He opened the door. No idea who he was. He was just a lovely, lovely, elderly American gentleman. And he walked me into the living room where Katharine Hepburn was. I thought what a lovely, lovely lady.

ANDREW: Did you know who she was at that stage?

TOYAH: No!!! Vaguely … I’d seen her with Cary Grant but you know - the arrogance of youth? I was just thinking about me, I was thinking I want a record contract, I want to be in Star Wars. I want I want I want! So I did vaguely recognise her but I was worshipping me. So anyway, we did a reading, it was Emlyn Williams “The Corn Is Green” (below) being made into a TV movie, produced by both Cukor and Hepburn.

And then we got on to punk, and Katharine was just so enamoured at the concept of punk and I was telling her about the band and what we had to tolerate. People spat at us. People thought that we were kind of aggressive and nasty when I think punks’s were very progressive in that we were very accepting and just wanted the world to change for the better.

So I went away from that just thinking I had a lovely afternoon with two wonderful American people. At midnight I got a call from Libby Glen and you could tell she was beside herself with joy and she said “Toyah, you've got the role of Betty Watty. Go back the next day and read the whole play with Katharine Hepburn". So by this time I’d taken my wig back to the National Theatre. It was worth about £3000 so it couldn't keep hold of it.

And I went back to Eaton Square and George Cukor opened the door and with my bright red hair he said “do you want to take your hat off?” And I said “no, George, this is my hair” and he was visibly upset and what was really interesting about this in retrospect George Cukor had a reputation for being really tough with his actresses. He had reputation for shouting. And he only ever did that to me once, and that was on set, and Katharine Hepburn really, really tore him down a strip.

Cukor got a fabulous performance out of me and what I would say about him at this point, when he opened that door, is he did not lose his temper with me. And I think what he saw in me was what was necessary for women in the industry to remain strong and protected. So he let me into where Katharine Hepburn was. He said, “Katharine, can you believe that hair is bright red?!” Steam coming out of his ears and Katharine got up and she said (does an American accent) “George! This is just so wonderful! If only I could have done it when I was her age!” I think these were two people who had to play a very dangerous game within the Hollywood system because they were genuine artists, they weren’t like the roots of Hollywood, which really did start in the porn industry and how men could sleep with more women.

These were two genuine performers who loved the art of film, who believed in performance passionately. Because Katharine Hepburn on her first stage performance, the critics called her manly, vulgar, ugly, should never be seen live again and her voice should never be heard. It was like nails down a blackboard. These people had received the sharp end of the stick of criticism, and I think when they met me, what they really took to was that the rebellion I had is the rebellion it took to be in that industry. Does that make sense?

ANDREW: I find it’s such an artificial industry. There's so many people who are terribly shallow and they have to live a persona which is not really there. So they go home, and the reason a lot of people in this profession get depressed and we don't see the real side of them is that they are not allowed to be themselves. And what you have done and Katharine and various others have done is say “actually were human. If you prick me I bleed”.

The industry, when it’s so horrible, even when you were getting your grant to go to school would say “don’t give her the grant because she has a lisp and she’s unattractive” They become voted the sexiest person ever! You beat Kim Wilde in 1981, I remember. If you can get rid of the artificiality in the industry and be yourself and this is why people take a real shine with you.

TOYAH: It’s a tough one. The grant you're referring to - it was a heart breaking moment. I had no money. I was, I think, about 16 turning 17 and I auditioned for a grant for drama school with a Mr. Slade. And I saw his notes ... “she's unattractive. She has a lisp. She can't walk.” And I didn’t get the grant and I was penniless, but what that led to and talk about angels in the architecture …

The head of the drama school Mary Richards, who worked for a very famous theatre man, who worked with Laurence Olivier, Barry Evans, or someone like that - Mary Richards realised I couldn't even buy a slice of bread, so she let me go to the drama school for free.

ANDREW: Oh she did?! Oh good!

TOYAH: Yeah, I paid her back once I was at the National. And I then started dressing. I was a dresser backstage at the Birmingham Alexandra Theatre at the Hippodrome Theatre. Dressed Judy Geeson, Sylvia Syms, Simon Williams, the whole of Dad's Army. Many, many more and they all realised I was penniless and they all fed me. There are beautiful people in this industry. So when you say find your naturalness, the way I would interpret that is find your uniqueness.

What fascinates me about social media is - the biggest success that is making BBC Channel 4, Channel Five employ the social media stars, is those stars are basically talking about normality and I find that quite surprising. Because I always try to turn normality on its head. It's never attractive to me, but people need recognition in their homes of themselves. So I think the price I've slightly paid is that I've admitted that I'm a bit strange.

ANDREW: But I think being strange is great. The reason things like soaps work, the reason reality shows work is because first of all people are really nosey, they like to see other people’s lives. But they also are now cutting through the fake.

What I love about this medium is that I can sit down with people that have been chums for years and just talk about real stuff. But it's not like we've got 30 seconds to promote an album and off you go! It's actually ... let's be real. We have good times. We had wonderful times and sometimes really bad time.

TOYAH: Andrew, you once booked me for a show where my band was stuck on the Dartford Bridge and I was due on stage in 3 minutes!

ANDREW: I remember that! (both laugh)

TOYAH: Talk about bad times! I have never bricked it as much in my life. There was an accident on the Dartford Bridge and they literally turned up I think the moment I was announced.

ANDREW: It was. I was announcing, I was presenting as well (Toyah cackles) I think I had to run through your whole history first!

TOYAH: There was 8000 people!

ANDREW: It was a massive racecourse! We had Rick Astley on the bill, we had Paul Young and it was fantastic! But it's good because that means that actually were living in the moment, and I actually like those moments because we're not just regurgitating stuff and what I notice is a lot of people in this industry it’s given them permission. It's okay not to be on all the time. It's OK to have a terrible day. The more we can encourage people to that in this fake media age the better, isn’t it?

TOYAH: Yeah, and I think men in particular. I've done a lot of work in the last six months with the charity Calm which is to actively discourage men from thoughts. Suicide and the act of suicide and then lockdown ... it's the one thing that has really struck me. I'm a woman. I'm used to being disempowered. It doesn't make it right, but I'm used to it and I ride the wave of it.

But to see men, who have been in the last two months - used to phenomenal success, running successful companies - going to zero. And that's frightened me that they've been put through that, and I feel very strongly that part of my work is to empower people and to empower people that don't get a look in.

And what has really resonated with me very strongly in the last six months is men suffer. And we know women suffer. It's there in history. It's being broadcast a lot, but I think in the modern world, as young women come forward and stuff like that we do tend to forget that men are equally vulnerable. In the last couple of weeks I've just been seeing men lose their fight and that frightens me and I will do anything I can to motivate and give confidence back to people who’ve suffered that.

ANDREW: As you know I’m involved with Equity and the Magic Circle and a lot of creative industries. Something called “canned laughter” and the reason it's OK not to be OK, the phrase we coined at the time and the reason we did that was exactly that people think you have to have this persona in the outside world and you're not allowed to show your weaknesses and not allowed to show your failure.

And the more we get people coming on and talking about their own struggles, the more it empowers people to say it is okay not to be okay. I'm not alone in the darkest moments - when the most valiant characters are often the ones who are tortured inside and you find that a lot with comedy and everything else, don’t you?

TOYAH: I know. Comedy and observational comedy is brilliant. Especially on a day like today with America doing what its doing … What can you say when people are are being treated that way by a leader. It’s just crazy, but comedy - it's brilliant but also the active talking. And I'm not great at reaching out to people or I'm quite good on my own. And what I've done in the past few weeks is reached out to people I don't normally reach out to. “Hello, I’m here” and it's been remarkable because firstly, they’re surprised to hear from me and secondly, they needed to talk.

And I think talking is a great great help. And having friends is a great help and no one should expect to be perfect. Perfection is not possible. Moving forward, growing, strengthening what you know is possible but being perfect? No. What does it mean? No one is perfect. No one should be.

There's a very simple set of exercises I started a month ago that did me the world of good. And it's based on the theory of the secret, and there's a book out there called “The Magic”. Best seller. There's nothing revelatory about this, but it works. And every morning you wake up and you write down 10 blessings in your life like “I am blessed for these glasses (shows her glasses) because someone made them. Someone invented the lenses. Someone got the plastic, someone delivered them” and in these blessings you just remember the chain, but follow each blessing.

“I am blessed from this lipstick (shows a lipstick) “Some bees made the wax, someone made the dye. Someone designed the packaging. Someone put it in the shop, someone delivered it and someone paid me the money to buy it” and you start joining up the pieces and I did this every morning for a whole month and boy! It did me did me the world of good. Because it stopped it being about me.

And I just think if you look around you and see the good things before you see the bad things you get a different perspective. So even when I'm really ratty and miffed with how I'm treated I always try and see the good outcome of it and go from that perspective and it makes it a much more palatable thing to deal with. Does that make sense?

ANDREW: That's how I should live by. There's so much to be grateful for. We are incredibly privileged in what we're doing, and even in those darkest moments there's some great things to look at, and it's a question how to put the world in perspective, isn't it? Because I think you're right in that a lot of people have trouble because they have to live a lie. They get packaged and there are so many expectations on you. Turn around and say okay, hang about, there is good in all of this.

Can I change the perspective of how I look on the world and the more we can get people talking about it and you often find this, again with celebrities, the biggest A stars in the world. One person will say I met them on such and such a day. Wonderful, best person ever!” And some other will say “oh no, I met them, they were a real grump!”

Probably - the answer is both. Because different times of the day I’ll be grumpy one moment, I’ll be happy the other. If you went up to them in a restaurant when they’re trying to a have a private dinner ...That's probably not the moment! So you try to work out the people in the public eye are people and they’ve got feelings as well, haven’t they?

TOYAH: Also the way I look at it is, there's different levels of craft within different levels of successful people. So let’s take Charlize Theron. I think she's about 6 foot three, so that gives her presence in the room. She produces films. She's phenomenally successful, she chooses the right script. She develops the right scripts. So there's a power player.

Then on screen her technique is so phenomenal that she could blow any other actress away. “Bombshell” (NB She means "Atomic Blonde") is an absolute example of this. She's working with English and American actors on that film. I think American actors have such phenomenal technique and even the A-listers still go to acting class.

What you see on the big screen is the perfection of technique. You're not seeing the person. Not seeing the reality of the actor, you're seeing their phenomenal technique, which is an art form. So if you go up to them in a restaurant when they're being them, you're not meeting the same person. I just tell myself that absolutely no one in this world knows who I am. So don't approach them as if they should. And that for me puts everything in perspective.

Firstly I never approach famous people. I'm too enamoured to do that, but also I know the pressure they are under to do exactly what you're saying and be up to 10 all the time rather than allowing themselves to be running on 4. It's a really difficult one.

I live on the High Street in a very small market town just on the edge of the Cotswolds, and I know if people come up to me, they've come up to me because they trust me and know me so I'm always really kind and I stop whatever I'm doing and I say “how are you? How's your family? How’s everyone coping?” Because that's the environment I live in. That would never happen in Hollywood. Can't happen in Hollywood because people chase with cameras and then people trying to fall over in front of them and sue them. In this country that doesn't happen. So I think you have to look at the reality of the situation you're in and think about why is this celebrity in that surrounding at this present time.

ANDREW: I think you’re I actually right on that, and I think again it's such a strange industry where people are manufactured. You, obviously a massive star in the 80’s … The pressures on you to be a certain person, to be a product, if you like. Some people in that era start to believe their own publicity, which is the worst thing you should ever do, but also the people surrounding them on the way up disappear on the way down and a lot of those people then get terribly worried and have a lot of issues

TOYAH: There’s a lot of questions here to be answered. Firstly, I am fascinated by people who are completely lost in their own world and they have no idea of the vulnerability of the house of cards. I just love watching those people, mainly the reality stars who believe they’re megastars. It's absolutely astounding. And they’re the ones that treat (people) the worst and obviously I've done a few reality programmes -


ANDREW: “I’m A Celebrity (Get Me Out Of Here)” (above), you’ve done this, you’ve done that – phenomenal

TOYAH:

The ones who believe they are megastars have absolutely no natural talent (they both laugh) They are the worst and they are the most fascinating to work with. You’re not allowed to talk to them, you can only listen to them. Everyone around them, they've obviously developed contracts that are so rock solid that they have to be treated like A-listers and you think wow! What are you going to do when that house of cards falls?

And then I have to add, the greatest human beings I've met are the A-listers. I have not met an idiot A-lister. The bigger the name, the greater the soul. Paul McCartney, Katharine Hepburn, Kate Bush. They are really stunning human beings. Sting. Wonderful human beings. Peter Gabriel.

They’re not idiots, and they don't treat people badly so that whole thing is - I actually think there is something out there as an A-list superstar and they’re great human beings. So for those who fall from grace or had super stardom and don't have it so much now, you're right. That is really hard and I think some protect themselves by living in an imaginary bubble.

But I think others just get on with it and develop their craft. And if I'm to name names, I'm going to insinuate that they kind of had a fall and I don't believe in the fall because you never lose your talent. But let's look at the trajectory of Jason Donovan, who was hounded by the press. Hounded by the “News Of The World”. What you very rarely hear about Jason is that he is a fabulous father in a fabulous marriage. He's a wonderful family man.

ANDREW: Lovely guy!

TOYAH: Super successful touring artist and a West End artist and a great actor. People don't want to know the good news about people like us in the newspapers. They want tragedy, they want jeopardy so there are a few that fall from grace and go to alcohol, possibly go to drugs, but there are also a hell of a lot of survivors who mature into very brilliant stars and they face their demons.

ANDREW: The real secret and you're right about the A-listers, the more successful people are, the more comfortable they are being themselves. And talking about why people like Laurence Olivier and Katharine Hepburn take an instant shine to you … because you’re you! People like Derek Jarman … talk to us about “Jubilee”. He became almost like your surrogate father, didn’t he?

TOYAH: Yeah, he was a wonderful human being. It is very interesting because I’ve got to go back historically to that period in time. I met him in 77’. An actor called Ian Charleson, who was starring in -

ANDREW: “Chariots Of Fire”! I remember that one!

TOYAH: Yeah. We were at the National Theatre together. I was doing “Tales From The Vienna Woods” and he said “you've got to meet Derek Jarman, you’re just going to hit it off “ and he took me round to (Derek’s house) in South Kensington and the idea was going to have tea with Derek and just get to know him. To put it into perspective then I knew nothing about a sex life. I knew about the birds and the bees, but I just knew nothing about the depth and the culture of people’s sex lives. And I walked into the apartment and everyone was naked except Derek (they both laugh)

And I just didn't understand and there were no women. I was the only woman there. So anyway, we sit down and have tea and at that time Derek's partner was a very very beautiful French boy called Yves. And Yves was just languid like a cat and was just wandering in and out completely starkers, making tea for us and delivering biscuits and Derek handed me a script and I think it was called “Down With The Queen” and he said "pick a role”.

So I flipped through the script and I just picked the role with the most words. And he said “you can't have Amyl (Nitrite), that's being played by an actress called Jordan (above with Toyah in "Jubilee") who's a muse of Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood

ANDREW: I’m still in touch with Jordan, who’s now a veterinary nurse

TOYAH: OK. Derek was totally, totally in love with Jordan. I think the whole of the punk world and the whole of punk industry was in love with Jordan. She was iconic. And another really interesting character because she had such great normality about her, but she wore very extreme sex clothes and she would travel on the commuter train between Brighton and London with exposed breasts.

She was strong. She was really strong. She took nothing from the middle class behaviour that happened on those trains. So anyway, Jordan was starring in this film that was to be named “Jubilee”, and Derek gave me the role of Mad which was the pyromaniac and I thought, well, you know, this is my first movie. I feel like I can be myself in this.

A month later, Derek tracked me down and he said "I had to get rid of your character in the movie because we don't have the money to have as many characters" and Derek was an empath and even though I just said “OK, thanks for letting me know” ... I put the phone down … Derek realised he'd broken me in that moment because this was my life saver doing this film and he spent another three weeks trying to track me down because I had no phone. I was in a bedsit and I used to phone him on a payphone on the street and he tracked me down and he said “’I’ve put you back in the film. I won't take a fee. My fee is going to pay for you to go back in this script."

And it was a phenomenal experience of this very, very talented man who is honed in his craft in so many ways. As an artist, painter, a visual artist, the script writer, a film maker, Super 8 film maker. He had so much to do and so much to say. And then on his private life there were things going on that I couldn't even comprehend. And I occasionally would ask “Derek, what does this mean? Why is that person doing that to that person?” He was just magical. Absolutely magical.

ANDREW: What sort of things were going on in his private life?

TOYAH: Just complete freedom. Complete freedom. You talk about people wearing masks. No one in Derek's life wore a mask. Everyone was completely free to be instinctively what they felt they were and coming from a very strict religious background and also a very strict upbringing anyway, where caning once a week was dished out so you knew who was boss and a school that wouldn't identify with anyone that didn't fit into the norm … Derek was a breath of fresh air, but also I realised that I was a country girl coming into the town and I ended up just keeping quiet because I was just showing my ignorance.

ANDREW: But it was quite shocking. I think you’ve said publicly, it’s the first time you’d seen other people naked. The shock of that and then go into a movie like “Jubilee”. That must’ve been a bit challenging, wasn’t it?

TOYAH: Well, it was because one of my first scenes where I had to read one of Jordan’s diaries and Jordan was rewriting history in the movie. And it was a 10 page scene on one shot. So we did the master shot first before we did the cutaways to Carl Johnson and Ian Charleson, who were playing incestuous brothers. And it required me to kind of walk round this warehouse and then jump into bed with the brothers in-between them. And I was in these huge rubber waders, a leotard and a life jacket. Three stone heavier with a shaved head. So not everyone's ideal of sexual attraction, and so we literally didn't do a run through.

Derek said “just do what you want, but use the whole room” and when it got to going into the bed, I pulled back the sheet and jumped into bed and I just completely froze and Derek said “are you OK? Do you want a cue?” and I said “Derek, I’ve not been with a naked man this close before” (laughs) They were both naked next to me and the whole floor just burst out laughing and I said “can I just get used to it?” (they both laugh)

ANDREW: It is close and even when you did it a few years ago at the Lyric Theatre in Hammersmith (below), in Manchester as well -

TOYAH: Ah! Wonderful!

ANDREW: It was fantastic! And seeing your Queen Elizabeth (below) in that when they did it as the stage play. And there’s still that shock element. I was with a few celebrity friends and the first time they came to see that it was quite tough on them. There is still that shock, isn’t there? And nowadays, having come from the punk era where you could shock people still … Nowadays it’s quite difficult to shock people, isn’t it?

TOYAH: This was an adaptation by the director-writer Chris Goode, who is renowned for shocking and his writing I think was magnificent. And he wasn't held back by the restrictions and laws that Derek was held back by all of his life. So Chris Goode was able to write with the creative and sexual freedom we luckily have today. And he decided to choose a gender fluid cast, very brilliant cast. Oh! They were magnificent!

ANDREW: Superb cast! They all got on well together

TOYAH: We love each other. We still love each other. And they were talented! So amazingly talented. Breathtaking! And I had to kind of relearn things I thought I was cool about. We weren't allowed to use he or she or gender specification, so everything became fluid. So when I said “come on guys, let's go for lunch!” it was like ooohh ...

You just have to learn “they”, “it”. I don't like calling people “it” because you know that there are famous books about child abuse called “It” so I had to learn the use of the English language that didn't offend this new generation, but the performance itself ... it was shocking. And it was meant to be shocking.

There was female nudity and continual male nudity and sex scenes between men/women, girl/girl, boy/boy and they were going on with the audience intermingled onstage. So I think the Lyric Theatre Hammersmith, it found its audience. What was interesting when we we opened in Manchester at the Royal Exchange and we lost 80% of the audience in the interval. It was just too much for them, but well done Royal Exchange for doing it. The Lyric, it was really, really special, super special event.

ANDREW: I came to see it twice twice, with, as you know, some chums in the celebrity world. I came back on the final night and you were superb in it because you are Queen Elizabeth in this one. What a great role!



TOYAH: It is stunning. Jenny Runacre was the original Queen Elizabeth in “Jubilee” the movie but Chris Goode wanted to work with me and he initially brought me on board as an adviser to teach the much younger cast, because most of them were below 30, about punk. And then he said “would you play Queen Elizabeth the First?” and I went “yeah!” It was a wonderful role to play because she was an anachronism. We were able to kind of place her anywhere in time, even though I was wearing the crinoline and all of that, the makeup was modern and the attitude was modern.

And when you look at Queen Elizabeth the First, she really was a punk. When she came to the throne, England only had £336 000 in the coffers. It was broke. It was broke through war, broke through many other things. So this woman was very, very clever. She ... have to be careful here because of international relationships, but she robbed the Spanish to make English very wealthy, and she plundered.

She used others to do her murders for her. She was, I think a coward in many ways, because when she wanted people done away she employed others to do the deed and then faked tears over it. She was a remarkably interesting character but you got to remember her father was Henry the 8th.

ANDREW: Quite. I think that would make anybody interesting …

TOYAH: Yes, and then you get alchemy. You’ve got to tell me to shut up because this is my favourite period - 

ANDREW: I’d never tell you to shut up! I love it!

TOYAH: John Dee, I believe, like many of the creatives in the history of mankind, who've evolved, who've made us kind of become a step further and evolution -  John Dee was one of those people who was in her life and John Dee I think outlived Queen Elizabeth. He got banished to Manchester but was an alchemist but he was also a man that I feel could see into the future like Nostradamus, like Leonardo da Vinci. He had a finger plugged into morphic resonance. He could see beyond the present time and it makes him very, very special. Shakespeare could see beyond the present time. And of course, Shakespeare was around when Queen Elizabeth the First was around.

ANDREW: Beautiful segway. We should always write the script for this … your Jarman thing, he then took you through to your first Shakespearean role, didn’t he?

TOYAH: Yes. I was already ascending very fast as a film actress and as a singer, so I think by the time I was asked to do Miranda in “The Tempest” (below) I'd already done “Quadrophenia” and I was breaking as a huge star, as a singer. In the first ever indie chart I was continuously number one for two years with whatever I released and in the albums chart, the nationwide album chart I was continuously number two with whatever I released, but albums didn't draw a lot of publicity back then. So anyway, Derek asked me to play Miranda in “The Tempest” and I was a bit nervous about it because I didn't like Shakespeare at school, I didn't get it.

And he said he would personally get me through the role and he said he wanted me hands on with the design of how Miranda should behave, how she should look and I met with your Yolanda Sonnabend, who was the designer for the Royal Ballet I think at the time. And we came to this conclusion that this was a girl who was shipwrecked at the age of three. Never seen a man other than her father, had only had the company of Sycorax, who was a monster in human form and only knew nature. So we created this creature with kind of little plaited pigtails and sun bleached hair and kind of skeletal crinoline with shells hanging off it, and a broken down corset. And she was a wild child. I loved it.

ANDREW: Type casting, almost, that sort of wild child ... but you mentioned - going back - the Derek Jarman of today. He knew sexual freedoms, that sort of stuff ... What would he have become?

TOYAH: I think, and I often wish he was still here because I think he would’ve become an international director. The interest in his work now is huge and what was evident when we did “Jubilee” on stage was that a lot of young film makers were more interested in Derek Jarman's history as a Super 8 film maker than they were in the big blockbuster style of movies.

Because Derek Jarman was a collage builder, he worked with colour and texture, which on film is a very exciting thing to do and I think young film makers would get a lot from him today. So I wish he was still alive because he, like Hockney, is someone I believe would have continued to thrill his audience.

ANDREW: That's actually the tragedy of it, isn't it? To see how they paved the way. But what I love about it he took you under his wing and he was, as you say, your surrogate father

TOYAH: Great friend. I was in poverty until I was about 23. With the band I only ever got paid £30 a week and we had to tour on that, go to make movies and all of that. I was always in poverty. I never had money for food. I can remember going into fish and chip shops at 11:00 o'clock and just being given the scraps to eat. So it was kind of a tough beginning, but I don't think it's any different to the majority and Derek used to feed me and make sure I was OK.

He was very in tune with mental health as well and would always kind of gee me up if I was not working at a particular time and he would invite me along to meet some journalists, or other directors. He would plug me in so that I got some work like modelling for Vivienne Westwood for the day which gave me £100. So he was a good man, good man.

ANDREW: And about that sort of time, beautiful segue into the Sex Pistols and Malcolm McLaren and “Quadrophenia” because Johnny Rotten I think was originally going to be in “Quadrophenia”, wasn't he? The story goes the insurance wouldn't allow it. Is that right?

TOYAH: Yeah. I was asked to get John Lydon, aka Johnny Rotten through the screen test for “Quadrophenia”. (The director) Franc Roddam asked me if I would do it and I didn't really know Johnny Rotten at the time, but I went along to his apartment off the King's Road and it was interesting because there was a band called The Slits unconscious on the floor along with many others. The living room was just like a lot of people unconscious.

ANDREW: But you’re used to this! You’ve been in Derek Jarman’s house with all the naked men! This is the next stage up isn’t it?

TOYAH: Interesting thing about Derek Jarman was that everyone was active. You had John Maybury building sets and you have people building pictures and painting and doing animation and making movies. With Johnny everyone was comatose. So Johnny and I went into his kitchen. We ran two scenes, obviously Johnny was testing to play Jimmy and I was testing for Steph, the female lead.

Neither of us got the job and what was interesting is Johnny was phenomenal. He was a very excellent actor. I think Pete Townshend phoned Johnny to say “look, we love your acting but you can't do the film, we can’t get the money or the insurance if you're in it” and I think Johnny Rotten said (does a nasal voice) “well I don’t want play you anyway!” (both laugh)

ANDREW: That sounds like Johnny! Absolutely!

TOYAH: I hope he goes into acting. He’s like Ray Winston, he's got that quality.

ANDREW: He’s a great character and The Sex Pistols were a great band. You saw them early on didn’t you, when you came to London for the first time?

TOYAH: No, I saw them Birmingham. I felt very isolated with my green and yellow hair and my home made clothes. I was at drama school and I was thinking why am I like this when everyone else is pretty and petite. A friend said “why don't you go along to a nightclub called Bogarts? There's a band on called The Sex Pistols. See what you think of them”. And I went along and suddenly I wasn't the only punk in the village. There was 350 punks there and I found my place and my community and that very much gave me confidence to be different and unusual.

ANDREW: “Quadrophenia”, Johnny didn’t get the role for insurance or other reasons. Talk to me about the role. You met some extraordinary people in that as well, didn’t you?

TOYAH: “Quadrophenia” is a stunning movie directed by Franc Roddam, who up to that point was known for making very gritty brilliant documentaries, and that's how he wanted to shoot “Quadrophenia”. So the cast are an iconic cast. Phil Daniels, who quite rightly got the role of Jimmy and his performance is up there with every other A-lister performance. It’s Oscar winning. It’s stunning. If you don’t know the movie watch it for him. Lesley Ash plays Steph, Sting plays The Ace, Mark Wingate, myself, Gary Shail, Trevor Laird ... Have I mentioned everyone in that row? I think I have … so if you look at the poster, it's an iconic poster of stars to be.

And I played Monkey in it. I was making “The Corn Is Green” with Katharine Hepburn when I realised that the production office of “Quadrophenia” was in the same building and I hadn't got a part so I started pestering Franc Roddam. I knew he hadn't cast Moneky because he didn't know how to cast Monkey and he hadn’t found the right person. His office was on ground level at Wembley so I used to go out of the building from filming with Katharine Hepburn, sometimes in costume, and bang on the window “Franc! Give me a fucking job!” and he called me in and he didn't know that I knew Phil Daniels because I did my first ever acting role with Phil when I was 18

ANDREW: First ever movie (NB It was a TV play called "Glitter" in 1976)

TOYAH: And Franc Roddam said to me “if you can act the party scene from “Quadrophenia” where you snog Phil and you convince me - you've got the role”. Well, Phil and I just did the party scene and snogged and it wasn't a problem. So I got the role and thank goodness because it's probably the most famous film I’ve ever been in

ANDREW: And being yourself you hit it off. Sting – you hit it off with him, got on very well from the beginning?

TOYAH: Sting was lovely. A school teacher. He knows how to deal with people. He knows how to bring people out of themselves. So Sting spent a lot of time trying to teach me and another actress called Tammy how to sing the harmonies to Police songs and at that point my ear wasn't trained enough to do harmony. But he persevered and his star was ascending. Lovely, lovely man.


ANDREW: And I think again he draws from experience, songs like “Don’t Stand So Close To Me”, talking about his time as a teacher and the difficulties which nowadays – people are facing the same sort of issues.

TOYAH: Yeah and the thing with Sting, I mean life has changed radically in the last 30 years. “Every Breath You Take”. It could be about a stalker, it could be about an admirer. I've had this in my career. My second single is called “Tribal Look” and the kind of imagery was inspired by the Masai warriors. So culturally its is completely inappropriate now (the line makes crackling noises)

ANDREW: And we’re back! Very good! The aliens suddenly invaded! We’ve got about 10 minutes left today, but hopefully we're going be able to bring you back. I know how incredibly busy you are. We’re going to have to do your career in little chunks I think but we were just talking about Sting and how wonderfully influential he was on your life as well. Tell us a bit more

TOYAH: Well, I mean I worked with him in “Quadrophenia”. We then saw him socially because Robert and I bought Cecil Beaton's house in Wiltshire, Reddish House and Sting was at Lake House, which was not that far away from us. Sting always impresses me that he likes to bring people together. The famous story where he put Madonna and Guy Ritchie together over Sunday lunch and it was an instant success.

So Sting is very good with people. But one of the people we shared as a friend, and this is going sound very bizarre, is Edward Heath (the British Prime Minister 1970-74). Edward took a huge shining to me. He agreed to let me interview him for a TV series I was doing in the Wiltshire area about people who lived in Salisbury. Apparently he never allowed women to interview him and we hit it off and I ended up hosting his Sunday lunches with him at Arundells which Sting used to come to with Trudy (Sting’s wife) as well.

This one time Sting, Trudy, Andrew Lloyd Webber, myself and a huge billionaire banker, were all around the table and I think Edward had to pop up and talk to Gaddafi for three hours on the phone. There were other occasions where Princess Margaret was invited down and we’re all kind of pushing away the responsibility looking after Princess Margaret. So everyone is going “you’re looking after her!” “You’re looking after her! Go into the garden and look after her!” So I go out to the garden and “hello ma’am” and run back and “Robert! Robert! You’re looking after her!” Kind of stars hiding in the bushes (they both laugh)

ANDREW: Another one, Princess Anne, very down to earth

TOYAH: Oh, wonderful woman

ANDREW: Fantastic woman and Edward Heath ... Did you ever see the movie "Lost In Translation"?

TOYAH: Yes!

ANDREW: It is all based on the advertising industry. So my role – I used to go and negotiate with major public figures and get them to do advertising campaigns. I did an Edward Heath campaign for Aquascutum. I got Stephen Hawking, God rest his soul … I got him to do Uniqlo and we had Maggie Thatcher to come along to different things. All these public figures, the A-list celebrities would come along to Japan. A lot of money. Nobody can see it outside of Japan so it’s OK. Edward Heath was a wonderful character so I can see how you hit it off on that sort of thing as well

TOYAH: One of the most human sides of Edward Heath I ever saw was his love for his family. Nieces and all of that. There was this moment in the cathedral where he was conducting a huge symphony orchestra and a guest pianist, coming from Europe, and I wish I could remember the name but this man had just lost his wife. He sat down at the grand piano and he collapsed in tears and he left the cathedral. Edward, who you don't think of as an empath, just left the cathedral, went and embraced the man and talked to him and got him back.

And it was the most electric performance. This man came back and just everything he's been through travelled through his fingers into that grand piano. It was very interesting seeing Edward deal with such a human situation because we don't often see leaders and MP’s as that human and he was very, very capable of being tender.

ANDREW: That for today is the secret, first for your success because you are so real. You’re always very busy but it’s always Toyah. And the great thing is it encourages others to be themselves. Great phrase “Be yourself. Everybody else is taken”

TOYAH: Yes! That’s good!

ANDREW: If there is one message – we will get you back, hopefully when you’ve got a minute in your busy schedule, I can get you back and we can chat more but I should let you go for today. It’s been a real pleasure catching up with you. Love to Robert and everything and I look forward to chatting again soon when you get a moment

TOYAH: Well, it's good to see you Andrew and big love to you and your family and hello to all your listeners! So I will see you soon.

ANDREW: I look forward to it. Thanks a lot. Take care, thank you Toyah