TOYAH ON
BBC RADIO LONDON
WITH JO GOOD
23.1.2018

JO: Toyah Willcox is an award winning British rock legend with over 20 albums and 13 UK Top 40 singles. She has starred in over 40 stage productions and 10 feature films, including Derek Jarman's controversial film "Jubilee". 

When it originally opened I believe Vivienne Westwood sent an open letter (NB It was an "open T-shirt", below) to Jarman describing it as the "most boring and therefore disgusting film that I've been put through". Well, to a punk that's music to their ears.

It's now being adapted for the stage. This time Toyah is playing the role of Queen Elizabeth the 1st and I'm so pleased to say she joins us on the afternoon show. Toyah, welcome.

TOYAH: Thank you. The last time I was here, I remember I sang "I Want To Be Free" live to you . . .

JO: It went out on a loop. I think we played it at the Christmas Special, the Easter Special, it went out again and again, thank you for that.

TOYAH: I just hope I was on tune and ....

JO: The thing about your voice … it doesn't age, actually, which is very interesting considering the amount of work you've done because it hasn't ever had a chance to rest, has it?

TOYAH: I've looked after it. I only sing four times a week. I could not do one of those tours where you are working for seven shows a week because I use so much range. I have a very large five octave range and I don't believe in doing the show if I can't hit my top notes.

So I'm very protective and I turned 60 this year, and my voice is getting better and better. Really, I had my fame at a time when I was learning on my feet, but now I feel I am a singer and I'm getting there so I really want to look after it. It means so much to me.

JO: I'm proud of you, because I'm 63, and I think we are such a lucky generation -

TOYAH: I totally agree

JO: Because you've got great hair. I think that as long as you've got good hair and energy and you came bouncing in here, and we're both the same height and I said we look like bookends and I quite like at 63 being little. You said you'd like to be a foot taller?

TOYAH: Yeah. I don't like being small, because it does affect how people speak to you. They speak down to you, not nastily but it's kind of . . . “well, she's small, we'll look down on her”. I have a real problem with it because mentally I feel I'm six foot tall, and then I have to keep reminding myself I'm barely five foot. I have a lisp and I hobble, so … I have to keep stopping to think that I am not Tina Turner. I'm not a supermodel. I'm short. I'd rather be a foot taller . . .

JO: No, I think you're as Len Goodman called me “a pocket rocket” and you certainly are -

TOYAH: Len likes that phrase. I think he's called me that, he's not exclusive with it, obviously!

JO: I watched “Jubilee” on YouTube this morning, there are some clips, because I never saw it the first time around so I'm really looking forward to coming to see it at the theatre. I think this is an extraordinary opportunity for all of us to see it. I never saw it at the movies.

My goodness! You were always cutting edge. I remember when I last saw you I said I've been reading (Sir Laurence) Olivier's autobiography and when he was at the National he said "this young girl is hanging out of the tower (Toyah giggles) doing a vocal limber" and he said “who the hell is that?” and "they said “it's Toyah” and I went “who's Toyah?”" There you were at the National Theatre when no one like you - no punk worked at the National -

TOYAH: 1976. I would absolutely rock the building because I was fresh from Birmingham. I had no idea of etiquette and behaviour. I was a wild animal, and I was so exhilarated and full of life because I was in this amazing environment so I would just shout out of the windows for wardrobe. I'd shout to wigs. Singing and running around, just feeling so lucky to be there.

And I can remember on one occasion, the rest of my dressing room - there were six of us in the dressing room - we found some wheelchairs in the corridor, so we were racing them backwards around the corridors. I bumped into Sir John Gielgud, and he said (does a posh voice) “Toyah! This is the National Theatre, not the zoo and you are not a monkey”. It was a joy. I think people liked me and loathed me in equal measure


JO: You took away the preciousness of the National. No one like you, no one like Toyah, no punk actress had ever gone into the National Theatre. It was all the Lords and the “luvvies” - and I hate that word, and then you turn up there.

You'd come from playing “Mad” in “Jubilee”, and she's the most extraordinary character. As I said I was watching it this morning – you with this sort of ginger, wonderful fuzzy head. Was that your own hair?

TOYAH: Yeah

JO: I mean, shaven head which we'd never seen. Living in some kind of squat. Did you film “Jubilee” in London?

TOYAH: Yes, it was all based from Derek Jarman's apartment in Butler's Wharf by Tower Bridge -

JO: Before it was the groovy place it is now -

TOYAH: It was completely rundown and slightly bombed out, there was a brewery next door so there was a gorgeous smell of hops every day. There was an artistic community living in this warehouse. You had Andrew Logan, Sandra Rhodes, Derek Jarman, it was electric.

And Derek particularly loved the punk movement and “Jubilee” in a way stood outside the punk movement because you can't make a movie and call it punk. It's a contradiction in terms, it's exploitation and Derek very quickly became aware of that when Vivienne Westwood, Malcolm McLaren, Siouxsie Sue – they all said they would have nothing to do with the film because it was exploiting the movement, and they were correct.

But Derek was an artist. Derek was a collage maker and at that time his style was about layering image and sound and story on top of each other to make a very rich experience. “Jubilee” was shot very much (on a) handheld (camera). It looked anarchic. He allowed us, the performers, to be anarchic. It had a great cast. The original cast was Ian Charleson, Richard O'Brien. Brian Eno did the music. It was a royalty of performers but also a royalty of punk artists as well, who agreed to do it -

JO: And rumour has it that you were mates with Ian Charleson and that's how you met Jarman?

TOYAH: At the National Theatre -

JO: And then Jarman wanted you for the role of “Mad” but didn’t have a budget and said, “I don't know if I can afford you” and then said to all of the actors, “I won't have a fee. I'll pay you lot instead”. Is that true?

TOYAH: Yes. What happened Ian Charleson was making “Chariots Of Fire”, and he was at the National at the same time as me. He said “I want to take you to meet someone, I think you're made for each other” and it was Derek Jarman. Ian and I had tea with Derek and Derek handed me the script. At that time it was called “Down With The Queen”, something like that. He said “pick a part”.

So it's a story about an all female gang who raped and murdered men at a time of anarchy in the UK, slightly set in the future. I went through the script, I knew that the punk icon Jordan had the lead in it, she played “Amyl" ("Nitrate”) and the next biggest role was “Mad”, the pyromaniac.

So I picked that role and Derek didn't even audition me, he probably trusted that because I was at the National Theatre I could act. And then a week later he phoned me and said he's had a cut in the budget and he’s had to cut characters and "Mad" had gone. He instinctively sensed that he broke me.

Everything - my dreams were relying on this film and I was a broken woman with that news. Three weeks later he found me - because back then you didn't have mobiles, didn't have email - and he found me, got in touch with me and he said “I could tell I had ruined your life in the moment I told you that. So I'm not going to be paid, my fee will pay for you to come back into the film.”

And it was an extraordinary experience making the film because it was so hand to mouth. There were days where he couldn't pay for us to have sandwiches. He'd be in tears and he'd say, “I don't know what to do, I can not feed you”. We said “don’t worry, we will support ourselves, we want to be here.” And it was very much a production of everyone. Even outsiders like Andrew Logan coming in and throwing impromptu parties for us. Everyone wanted this film made. So we made it as an ensemble and we made it possible.

But Derek was very much the pivotal linchpin that kept it all running, and there were days when we didn't know if we were allowed to film on the streets so we ran out, and we just filmed and waited to be arrested. And then we ran back to base. It was beautiful, loving anarchy

JO: And do you think he’d be pleased to know it's now brought to the stage?

TOYAH: Yes, he would, because Chris Goode, the director and writer of this particular version - he is passionate about the film. When the Manchester Royal Exchange invited him to put on stage anything he wanted to he chose “Jubilee” because of what it meant to him. He has bought it up to date, it's now present day, but it still very much hangs on to the story of the 1977 original.

But because we are leaps and bounds ahead within sexual politics and within politics general but we're still the same messed up world - we refer very much to gender politics, gender, sexual fluidity, gender fluidity and also today's politics that here we are again with the Tory government and the NHS is suffering, the young are having to go into debt to be students, that transgender people are still being beaten in the streets.

It's very much addressing all of that today within the original story of “Jubilee”. It's very clever, clever, it's very provocative. And another thing that Chris Goode has done - which I think is it stroke of genius - is the cast are all, in real life, political protestors. Thet're all actors but they're activists, which gives the play an incredible bravado and confidence.

These very brilliant performers are not scared to strip off, they're not scared to offend the audience, and they live for real. Like we as punks - we lived as punks. These guys live as activists, and that has brought Derek’s “Jubilee” into the modern day with a younger generation of performers.

JO: How interesting as you say, and totally topical. And if you look back - I've read what you've said in interviews about your own youth. You said gender was never a big concern to you. You were very boyish, you were gender neutral?

TOYAH: I chose to be a person, not an agenda and I used the term third gender. Well, now we have many, many genders. I still be prefer to be referred to as a person -

JO: And you say and I agree with you - we're the same generation - all of that thrusting through the barriers that you certainly did and I suppose I did in my own tiny way - it was available to us. These kids now have taken the route that I never took, which is they're all qualified, they're all at university, they all have degrees ... and 50% are out of work. That is really worrying, isn't it? So we've taken a step forward and then 10 back.

TOYAH: What concerns me is 40 years ago, when I was a punk rocker, everything was an opportunity, and I feel genuinely concerned that there's very little opportunity yet there is opportunity. With IT the way it is, with the technology the way it is . . .  If you have the right education and good ideas, there must be a way into the workplace.

I heard Billy Bragg say something utterly astonishing and it blew the top of my head off. About four years ago, he was writing for an anniversary of the “Titanic”, he wrote the most beautiful song about people that worked on the “Titanic" and he said he was the first member of his family that was not born to work in factories.

What frightens me today is within media young people are very much born to shop and to spend money, and to become ill. And what I mean by that is by entering into obesity. That really frightens me because they are being encouraged to be poor. If we don't address this  - what was phenomenal about punk was individual identity and punk opened up and pushed out the boundaries that if you had an idea that idea had a place, and it could move you forward in the world.

And I think young people need help to identify with that individuality as being part of what puts them in the workplace, their ideas have a footing there. So it does worry me incredibly that the young people today are in a completely different world to the world I came into.

JO: Neither you or I have children and I often think it has enabled us to bounce around from job to job -

TOYAH: A lot of freedom, yeah -

JO: And it has given us a huge amount of freedom, hasn't it? I have God kids and nieces and nephews and all the rest of it and you watch them and you just think every generation thinks they're the luckiest but I truly believe we were and are -

 

TOYAH: Yes, I agree. We were very very lucky -

JO: It was all out there for us -

TOYAH: It was all out there and we're still lucky -

JO: I think punk was a voice that was listened to. It went across to the States and everything. Now ... what is there? What rebellions are there?

TOYAH: Let's just jump back to 77’ – I mean punk started really around 74’ but 77’ was the Jubilee year, we had the 1960’s, which was a huge social revolution, especially for women. It was the introduction of the pill, free love. You had amazing bands like The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, then we had amazing artists like Bowie, who was just so creative. I mean what incredible role models we had.

Now we live in a broader world where there is so much choice, and there's so many little niches. It's quite hard to find your inspiration, because you need to find a niche to find the inspiration within it. We were very lucky. I still think the luck is there.

I just think we actually need a bit of a revolution, hopefully a bloodless one that will rebalance everything. I have no respect for people who are multibillionaires, because they're doing it because they're not paying taxes, and their parents help them be where they are, it's so unfair. We need to find a way that everyone has the opportunities we had where class, nepotism and education didn't hold others away from being successful. We all deserve success, we all should be working in the workplace.

JO: I'm going to go home and see this, it's at the Lyric (Hammersmith). What a perfect theatre for it to go. Did you open it in Manchester?

TOYAH: At The Royal Exchange Theatre - 

JO: Oh, I love that! I haven't been to the new one. I remember the old one -

TOYAH: It's mind blowing  . . .

JO: Is it? How was it received? Who is your audience? (Is it the) Toyah audience?

TOYAH: Well, critically it was received - it took us all by surprise. It's a huge critical success. The audience to begin with were middle aged and middle class, and we lost about 40% in the interval. But then slowly we've found the audience that can stomach the violence, stomach the nudity, stomach the sex.

It is about an all girl gang who rape and murder men but it's also abut transgender politics at the same time. It really is an eye opener. And by Act Two people are shouting approval, they agree with the politics, and they're up on their feet, crying ... it's beautiful -

JO: And apparently you were fangirled outside?

TOYAH: Yeah! (laughs) I've been papped as well! It's been quite a morning!

JO: Of course you will (get papped)! She's going to leave here under a blanket! Toyah, thank you so much for coming in . . .

TOYAH: Pleasure, thank you, Jo.

Toyah and Jo at the BBC London studios