News & New In The Archive


2026 Songs & Stories Tour

The 49-date Songs & Stories Tour
starts on the 22nd of March

Book yours tickets HERE


Meteorite

A new memoir called Meteorite
was released in November

The book is accompanied by an exclusive 9-track CD
“Swipe Right, Paradise” of previously unreleased
demos curated by Toyah

There's also a Superluxe Edition which includes an Archive Scrapbook of images, doodles and handwritten materials across the decades and an exclusive 9-track vinyl

Order
Luxe Edition
Superluxe Edition  

Ophelia's Shadow and Take The Leap!
Picture discs and CD's

2-Disc CD's and a limited edition picture discs of both Ophelia's Shadow and Take The Leap! are out now

Order

Ophelia's Shadow
Take The Leap!

For more information visit Official Toyah


Chameleon – The Very Best Of Toyah

Toyah's new compilation
Chameleon – The Very Best of Toyah
on Cherry Red Records is out now

For more information visit Official Toyah

Order

2CD Edition

3CD/Blu-ray Deluxe Edition

2LP Gatefold Gold Vinyl Edition

 

NEW IN THE ARCHIVE

BBC RADIO SCOTLAND 26.2.2026
BBC RADIO SCOTLAND 11.1.2026
BBC RADIO 2 TRACKS OF MY YEARS 1.9.2025
BBC RADIO LONDON 13.9.2025
BBC RADIO 2 8.8.2025
BBC BREAKFAST AUGUST 2025
BBC RADIO 2, SOUNDS OF THE 80'S 19.7.2025
BBC RADIO SCOTLAND 13.2.2025
LOVE YOUR WEEKEND, ITV 23.11.2024
TOYAH TALKS LOVE IS THE LAW 2024
TOYAH TALKS THE CHANGELING 2023
E4 THE LATE EDITION 24.3.2005
IT'S YOUR FUNERAL, CHANNEL 5 2001
BBC1 LIFE AND TIMES 2000
LIVE TALK, ITV August 2000
KENNY LIVE, RTÉ, IRELAND 12.11.1994
ITV THIS MORNING April 1994
ITV THIS MORNING September 1992
ITV HTV WEST RECOLLECTIONS October 1987
SUMMER SUNDAY ITV TV-AM 19.7.1987
PEPSI LIVE! April 1987
BBC BREAKFAST TIME 1.4.1987
BBC1 WOGAN With Sue Lawley 16.4.1986
BBC BREAKFAST TIME June 1985
BBC PEBBLE MILL AT ONE 29.4.1985
SKY TRAX April 1985
BBC BREAKFAST TIME September 1983
HARTY, BBC1 16.11.1983
BBC GET SET, TRAFFORD TANZI SPECIAL 23.4.1983
BBC 1 BREAKFAST TIME 28.3.1983
SOUNDCHECK Issue 1, 1983
GET SET FOR SUMMER, BBC1 July 1982  
COUNTDOWN AUSTRALIA 4.4.1982
SUOSIKKI, FINLAND December 1981
PARKINSON, BBC1 October 1981
TISWAS 26.9.1981
ATV TODAY May 1981
TISWAS 14.3.1981
BACK ISSUE FANZINE 1980

Check out all the new stuff on our sister page HERE 

TOYAH ON
BBC RADIO SCOTLAND
AFTERNOONS
WITH MICHELLE MCMANUS
26.2.2026

MICHELLE: Let's turn our attention now to our guest for today. There are very, very few people who can claim to be a singer, an actor, a TV host, an author, a multiple Brit Award nominee and a film star to boot. My next guest has worn more hats than possibly any other and she's back on tour mixing her incredible music with tales from her life so far. This woman's stories are unbelievable  

What a night this is going to be if you're going to see her on tour. I'm of course talking about the fabulous Toyah Willcox and I had the pleasure of chatting to her earlier. Toyah, it is such a joy to have you back on "Afternoons". You know what huge fans we are when you are on this show. Can I just start by saying you look out of this world. You look phenomenal, as you always do

TOYAH: (On a video call) Well, thank you very much. That's very kind of you. I have to announce when I get to Scotland I will have had a birthday by then and I'll be 68 years old

MICHELLE: Stop it!

TOYAH: So I'm now calling myself the punk pensioner

MICHELLE: (laughs) The double p! But you must get told all the time how phenomenal you look. I think that's not just even about your outward appearance. I think it's where you are in your career, right? Just this place you're in and the control that you have and that you get to do the things that you want to do. That's very empowering

TOYAH: It is empowering. I enjoy being older, funnily enough, because I feel well. I have had incidents in the past where I've had to work through illnesses. I think that's inevitable. But here I am in my late 60's and I feel really great. I'm loving what I'm doing. I can't wait to do this tour and to be with these wonderful audiences who want to enjoy the stories I have to tell

We're going to have a lot of laughter on the evenings I spend in Scotland. A lot of music and I'm going to be encouraging the audiences to join in with the music as well. It's a really good place to be. I would like to say to everyone out there who is approaching 60 or their late 60's that life can get better and it certainly has for me
 

MICHELLE: This is so exciting for the fans because this is the content that people want. You don't need me to give you the stats, but I'm going to do them for the sake of it. You've had eight Top 40 singles, released more than 20 albums, written three books, appeared in more than 40 stage plays, 10 feature films

The list goes on. It is such a hugely impressive career. For you to be doing this tour "Songs And Stories" and allowing the audience in ━  because of course we get to see all of that glitz and glamor, but it's almost like pulling back the curtain, right?

TOYAH: Oh, yeah!

MICHELLE: We are not short of dates in Scotland. You're going to be in Aberdeen on the 10th of June, Greenock on the 11th of June, Edinburgh on the 12th of June. Airdrie on June the 13th and then beautiful Perth on the 14th. You enjoy coming to Scotland, because sometimes when people come, they'll do Glasgow and they'll leave. Or Edinburgh and they'll leave, but you've really got (gigs) across the country here

TOYAH: I feel really honored that I get to spend almost a whole week in Scotland. I'm used to going into Scotland to do a show, just for an afternoon and then having to leave again. That's just scheduling. The problem of scheduling it's not by choice. So here I am. I'm going to actually be in Scotland

My husband is going to be with me. I'm going to be with the wonderful audiences.  My experiences of playing Scotland, especially Glasgow and Edinburgh, are pretty amazing. You don't forget those performances. So I'm very, very excited

MICHELLE: With this show how have you been able to distill all of these things I've just mentioned and you've achieved so much more - how do you narrow all of that down? What is the process of deciding what makes it onto the show?

TOYAH: It's a very visual show. We have a screen. We'll be showing videos. I will be showing behind the scenes and telling stories about one of the most amazing things about being in show business (and that is

) what happens away from the camera and the kind of people you end up in rooms with. There's a story of when I played Uxbridge College, which is near London, in 1978. When I arrived at the college, there were four members of the KGB waiting for me. They were there to pick up exchange students and get them back to Russia

They didn't want to go, so they stayed with me. They stayed and watched the show. They sat on stage because they wanted to see what punk rockers did, and they wanted to see them spitting at each other. Then they came to the dressing room and they didn't leave. We did not leave that dressing room until nine the following morning. It's these really peculiar situations you find yourself in that I'm going to be talking about, because they are hysterical and unbelievable

Like being flown into the middle of a rainforest in Belize to meet Martin Scorsese, go to his ranch there and have lunch and then leave again. Things you never expected to happen. I think this is what I find interesting about my work. Being a creative person opens so many doors, but I want my audience to come and be inspired. I want my audience to leave the show feeling “oh, I've had this idea. I think I could make that work in a business sense”. What's so exceptional about every single one of us is we have ideas. I have to wake up every day and create a new idea so that I can go out on tour. I'll be talking about all of this stuff. It'll be very funny, because everything in my life tends to be funny


MICHELLE: But here's the thing, even those little things that you've just dropped in our laps there, my jaw is kind of on the ground. The audience must be hanging on your every word because I know what you're saying  ━ that we can all do this, but we actually can, right? You have done it and I think you've had such a strong identity. No one says your name and no one doesn't know who we're talking about, right? The image pops up in the head, we know exactly who you are

You've always been your true authentic self or certainly that's what it seems like to those of us that have followed you  ━ which was hard, by the way, in some of the decades that we're talking about. To be that person, be female and be in the music industry, in the film industry and all that kind of stuff

But the audience must be hanging on every word because we haven't lived that life. You're so lovely and humble the way you're just dropping it in there. But for an audience what an exhilarating evening to be there and also to feel that you're part of that interaction, because you are sitting and you're talking to the audience. It's spoken words

TOYAH: It's spoken word. We are doing all the hits and we're going to do the music that inspired me. So there will be Black Sabbath “Paranoid” and Alice Cooper “Schools Out” (Michelle laughs) but there will be all the Toyah hits as well. But also, I wanted to say that I became a hair model very, very young in Birmingham. I was 16 when I started to travel around the UK doing shows

To have brightly colored hair back then could be dangerous. Taxi drivers wouldn't pick me up. Some busses wouldn't allow me on the bus. People were threatened by it. This was pre━punk. Now I think women have the freedom to be who and what they feel they are and what they want to be. If that includes hair color they can do it safely. It's their choice. But back then you couldn't

MICHELLE: But do you not think some of that's got to do with you and women like you and the people who kind of walked that walk for us? I know you know this anyway, you'll have had these discussions before, but if those kind of pioneers don't come forward, like yourself at 16, who just goes “this is what's happening. I'm doing this because creatively, this is where I'm as a person.” If you don't do that, the rest of us don't get to do it now and we don't get to be in this place


TOYAH: I totally agree that every new idea needs a pioneer. We're very good at recognising them these days but back then when women kind of stepped out of the "sugar and spice and all things nice" it was very challenging

The beginning of my creative life was when I started as a professional at the age of 18, working at the BBC. I did a drama there and then moved to the National Theater when I was still 18. It was a fabulous revolution for women. We're still working on it, but it was the start of the wave and it was a fantastic time to be working

MICHELLE: This is why we need the show, because it's the insight, it's the content. It's what the fans want, because we know the success and we know the story and what's being presented to us. But I also think it's so brave as well to be a little bit vulnerable on stage and talk about these things. I know there's a lot of laughter and you need laughter. Even in the darkest times we need light

Laughter and comedy is a great way to do that, but to entwine that all with the music, it just sounds like such an incredible evening for the fans that are going to come along. Is this where you're most comfortable because you have done everything. We just had the third book ("Meteorite") coming out. You have starred in movies, you have been on TV and performing and now we have this. Being in front of a live audience, essentially, is that where you feel you're most comfortable?

TOYAH: Well, not only am I in front of a live audience ━ I'm in front of an audience that wants to see me

MICHELLE: A safe space

TOYAH: It's incredible. It's a safe space and I do love it. We're going to do a Q and A in act two which I'm just going to have so much fun with. I've seen a few other artists do this particular style of show and the questions are outrageous. I just can't wait

MICHELLE: (laughs) Especially up in Scotland. But also I think it's a great vehicle for new fans to come and see you. You'll have the fans that have been with you the whole way through it and that's a great side of streaming. I know there's a different debate with music online and stuff, but for the the new generation of fans that are coming through this will be maybe the first time they get to see you in person

TOYAH: Well, yeah and our social media has just been ridiculous since lockdown. I'm very grateful for it. I think we've had 150 million people come to our sites and in the last three months 17 million people have viewed the content that I've made

MICHELLE: You're an influencer. We'll add that to the list of things that you are. You're now an influencer!


TOYAH: If you told me this 50 years ago  ━  that we'd be able to do this, the power of being able to do it and the independence of being able to do it is fabulous   

MICHELLE: It is fabulous, Toyah. That's why we adore you. We're such huge fans and I want to thank you for taking the time to speak to us again. We love having you on "Afternoons" here on BBC Radio Scotland

Let me just remind our listeners, because they're going to have to be really quick if they want to get tickets. And then the next time we'll see you at "Rewind" on the 23rd of August in Henley. Thank you for taking the time to come on. Have the best week when you're here in Scotland. Fingers crossed you get some sunshine when you're up here

TOYAH: Yes!

MICHELLE: It's been a joy to speak to you again

TOYAH: Very good to see you, Michelle. Thank you so much and lots of love

MICHELLE: Oh, she was just amazing. What a woman, what a career. I think that will be an incredible show. So do not mess about. Make sure you get your tickets for that. "Songs And Stories" touring Scotland in June. Aberdeen, Greenock, Edinburgh, Airdrie and Perth. Don't forget she's also got a new autobiography "Meteorite". That'll be a great read

Listen to the interview HERE  

TOYAH ON
IT'S YOUR FUNERAL
CHANNEL 5
WITH KAYE ADAMS
2001

KAYE: Hello and welcome to “It's Your Funeral” where we ask celebrity guests what they want their final send-off to be like. This week I'm talking to a woman who first found fame in the 80's as a Britpop punk goddess

As an actress she made a mark in such films as “Quadrophenia”, and more recently she has mellowed, we hope, into a popular television presenter and alternative health enthusiast. Toyah Willcox - I have to say it's your funeral

TOYAH: Ahh (laughs) It's not something I want to think about too much

KAYE: Is it not?

TOYAH: Well, I think you do think about it but you don't dwell on it, do you?

KAYE: No

TOYAH: I think some people don't think about death at all, and I think that's a huge mistake. It's interesting to kind of confront what a funeral is

KAYE: So would you think about death before you would actually think of the funeral?

TOYAH: Oh, totally, yes. Because death is going to last longer than the funeral. And also I always believe that life is attaining to whatever happens that moment after death. Life is a journey to that moment. So I've never thought hey, wow, this is it - 80 years of fun. I've always had that kind of Eastern philosophy that the whole of your lifespan is a growing curve

KAYE: And are you as excited about what comes after as you are in the moment?

TOYAH: As it grows closer, no (laughs) I always said in my 20's I can't wait to die, (it's the) the biggest adventure of all. Now, as it does grow closer, I'm completely frustrated by the lack of time because as you grow older, you're more ready to live

I'm finding that with age comes a wisdom, therefore comes the ability to confront and face the world in a way that you couldn't when you were 20. So that's really frustrating

KAYE: So it's getting better for you, is it?


TOYAH: Oh, yeah. Definitely

KAYE: As regard to your funeral I have to say, with the possible exception of one other guest on the series - your plan is the most mind-blowingly imaginable. It really is. So I'm going to leave it to you to give it a name, and tell us what it entails

TOYAH: I would love a sky burial. A sky burial is a Tibetan tradition of how you dispose of a holy man's body. It's carried out in secret. Society, women, communities are not allowed to see sky burials. The body is taken up by the elders onto a mountain somewhere in Tibet. It's a Buddhist practice. Then the elders, the males of the village, dismember the body and it's quite gruesome

They hack it apart and then they pommel bits of the body with a brick. Well, not a brick, but a boulder or stone. (They) mix it with flour and then they feed it to the vultures. It's the highest, most sacred burial you can have in the Tibetan culture

The idea is that you're returning the body, the flesh, back into the cycle of life on Earth and you're placing the soul up into a higher sphere. I love the idea of, say, my father and my husband - and I would like to go before they do, because they're so precious to me -

KAYE: Both of them? Your father too?

TOYAH: Oh god, yeah

KAYE: Because that's against the natural cycle. If we're talking about natural - you know, returning to the earth

TOYAH: (Chuckles) Well, you know, things can happen. I not a safe driver (they both laugh) I love the idea of, say, the Malvern Hills. As a child, I grew up in with the Malvern Hills as this beautiful view. I read “Lord Of The Rings” and always thought it was about the Malvern Hills. I studied Elgar for my music O-level and Elgar wrote “The Variations” within the view of the Malvern Hills

So, say, there's a sacred quiet spot on Malvern Hills. My father and my husband could have my body delivered there and they could, if they could stomach it, take the body apart, pummel it, feed it to the pigeons (they both laugh) or some kind of imported vultures and then below there's this kind of wonderful wake going on

KAYE: We'll talk about the wake in a minute. But I mean, you use the phrase “if they could stomach it”. Have you discussed this with your father and your husband (Robert Fripp, below with Toyah)?


TOYAH: Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhism I've discussed with my father all my life. My father explored Hinduism and Buddhism when he was a sailor in the war and he was in the Middle East. So those ideas would not be at all gruesome to him. I think it would be more upsetting that his daughter has asked him to do that. My father had extraordinary experiences in the war, so I think he could face it

As for my husband I think he'd do anything I'd ask, to be honest. So it's a selfish thing to ask, but I think it's also a very privileged thing to ask. And it's this thing about the flesh. I was brought up to be afraid of cultures that ate flesh or practice cannibalism. Yet when you examine cannibalism it's about consuming the spirit. It's the continuation of the spirit

It's the greatest mark of respect to eat someone's flesh in those cultures. With the Tibetan culture, to actually take the flesh away, to destroy the person, to destroy the anchor that holds the spirit in the physical world is the greatest act of love that you could perform

KAYE: You're obviously educated about these cultures. Do you have a fascination with this?

TOYAH: Oh, yeah, totally

KAYE: Where does that come from?

TOYAH: Because I'm so frustrated by Western cultures. I was brought up a Christian. I think the basic message of Christianity is absolutely fine, but the taboos with death just drive me mad with frustration. We are saying on one hand we're Christians. We believe in life after death and on the other, we're saying oh no, don't destroy our memory. Don't destroy our physical body. We live in fear of dying and I just find that polarization completely maddening

KAYE: But death is scary

TOYAH: Of course it is. It's the biggest adventure we'll ever have and it's the biggest act of trust we ever have to consciously travel through

KAYE: Are you scared of it?

TOYAH: I'm scared of the process, because even in Tibetan culture, where wise men have died and believe they've died many times - death is not easy. They say within the culture that when you die you relive your life and then after a period of days you really live your death and that's very painful

Then after something like 49 days you start to relive your death tenfold so the pain and emotional content of your life concentrates and by that you find the essence of what your soul is. So death is, in a way, probably the most testing awful thing and yet the most liberating thing we can go through and the reason we go through it is it prepares the soul for the next life

KAYE: Do you believe that will happen to you?


TOYAH: I never believed in reincarnation. Purely because I can't bear the thought of coming back here. If someone says, "OK, you've got a choice: have nothing or come back here and go through that education system again" I think I'd go for nothing. I loathe the structure of the society I've been brought up in. I loathe it with a vengeance

KAYE: How do you find happiness then? Or don't you?

TOYAH: (Chuckles) Happiness for me is in being creative. It's in writing or having creative thought or even something as small as breaking an old habit

KAYE: Let's go back to your funeral. We've got the process of you being chopped up and fed back to the earth, hopefully, by your father and your husband. This is in the Malvern Hills. Is there going to be some kind of ceremony to accompany this?

TOYAH: Yes. I'd like the cutting up and disposing of the body to be away from view, away from eyes, because I don't want pity and I don't want horror and I just want it to be one with nature. But down the bottom of the hill there would be, say, some huge tents with a wonderful ceremony going on with all my heroes and heroines in the world attending

I've never met David Bowie, well, been in the room with him, and I'll never work with him, but I would like him to carry a flame and to carry that flame and light an eternal flame in memory of me

I would like an orchestra there, playing my favorite music. And all my heroes like Peter Gabriel, Billie Whitelaw, Dawn French - everyone who I've ever admired in my work (but) who I don't really know - I would just like them there. And there's an image that I'd like remembered of me more than anything

It was an image from a song I did called “Brave New World” where my face is painted in birds (below). Just like an enormous, dominating print of that, almost at the altar. Just so people can say goodbye. Very egotistical (laughs)

KAYE: So that stage in your life where you had these dramatic images, and in fact you said at the ceremony in the Malvern Hills you will have this massive visual image of yourself - sort of in the early 80's, yeah?

TOYAH: Yes


KAYE: When you looked so dramatic. Was that a cathartic process for you? Did you manage to burst through something?

TOYAH: Yes, all those images were based - we're talking about 20 years ago now - when you weren't allowed to look different. When punk evolved it was extraordinary time for women because suddenly you could wear anything and still be seen as an intelligent human being

The whole point of the face painting that I went through as a pop singer was to try and express how I was feeling internally and wear it externally, rather than try and hide it

Now, I was brought up middle class, and it's often been said and it's a bit of a cliche that the middle class are particularly good at hiding things. It's probably because I was brought up to hide everything I felt that I naturally was that I just had to kind of expel it all. Kind of wear my heart on my sleeve in some way

KAYE: The music. You mentioned Elgar - would his music feature?

TOYAH: Yes, he would. Elgar was madly in love with his wife and the majority of the music he wrote, usually, from what I believe by the history books, was in a state of tears over his wife. One piece was called “Nimrod” and he was so in love with her that all that emotion kind of transcribed into the music. I just think that would be very very fitting

KAYE: OK. Well, if you think it's fitting as you say - this is your fancy, this is your funeral so we have done this for you. We have got a rendition of Elgar's “Nimrod” by our own string quartet Sigma so let's listen to that now

The string quartet plays

KAYE: An incredible send-off it's certainly proving to be so far. We've had a Tibetan sky funeral, where your body is hacked up and fed to the birds and then this fantastic ceremony down below in the Malvern Hills, where all your heroes - David Bowie, Dawn French and everyone is there

TOYAH: (laughs) Are made to suffer

KAYE: Now you yourself said that this is a funeral which is normally afforded to very holy people and you were loathed to sort of put yourself in that category, really, but it does seem a funeral of a special person. Do you regard yourself as a special person?

TOYAH: It's not that I regard myself a special person. I think funerals should be special. I think people don't spend enough time (on them) I think a funeral should be like a wedding. It should be joyous. It should be really brilliantly contemplated. It should be an expression of everyone's love and everyone's memory towards that person

I'd like a funeral where everyone who knows me is involved on a certain level rather than coming and seeing a priest or a vicar, who never knew me, kind of run through my CV and then say “right, stick her in the ground”. I just think a funeral should be very creative


KAYE: Is it for the person who's gone or is it for the person who left behind in your mind?

TOYAH: Well, the one I created today is definitely for me (laughs). In a way it's a form of closure. So it should be as much for everyone left behind. It should also be a bridge, because I do actually believe there is eternal existence. I don't believe a soul can ever die. Well, it can but you have to work really hard at it. And therefore, the funeral is the bridge between the living and the person who passed into the next realm. So it's for both

KAYE: Right. Would there be any readings at the funeral?

TOYAH: Yes, there's a poem that I read at my mother-in-law's funeral which was very hard to read. The vicar actually asked me to read it. It's called “I'm Not Gone” and it's by Miss DJ. And it's stunning. Only a woman could have written it. It's full of love and it evokes the feeling of eternal life without the pretentiousness and the elitism that religion can sometimes have

KAYE: Would you perhaps (gestures Toyah to quote the poem)

TOYAH: Do you want to hear a bit? “I am not gone. I am part of forever in every season. Every bird song, in flowers, clouds and each rainbow. I am part of them. They are part of me. Do not grieve, only remember”

KAYE: So where do you think you will go? You said the funeral is the transition between this life and some other dimensions. What is that? Can you describe that at all?

TOYAH: Well, what I believe at present - and my belief always shifts as I learn more, is that the really holy people don't have to come back. They can stay in a kind of state of nirvana. The reason we come back is we have something to address. We have something to learn

KAYE: Do you think you would want come back then, or have you -

TOYAH: I really don't want to come back at all (laughs). I can't even bear thinking about it.

KAYE: It's kind of sad to hear you say that

TOYAH: If I did come back I'd like to come back as a man. I'd like to sin forever. On one level I think being a woman has been great, but I'm fed up of the culture and men telling me that I'm second class 

KAYE: Do you feel oppressed by it?


TOYAH: I think if people reflect negativity on you enough you do feel oppressed by it, yeah

KAYE: So what have you felt?

TOYAH: I didn't like my growing up, my being a child, having femininity forced upon me. I would have rather been genderless. I didn't want it presumed that because I was a girl I'd like to wear dresses and have dolls. I loathe all that role playing

KAYE: So are there still things that you want to deal within yourself?

TOYAH: Oh yeah, all the time. Creative issues, really. I believe we're all born with incredible potential but none of us, or some of us don't have the drive throughout life to reach that potential because you actually have to remain almost in a state of pain, emotional pain, to reach those highest creative levels

I'm talking here about ambition and people that are insomniacs, because all they can think about is being creative and they suffer for that creativity. Part of me would love to still be a great singer, a great writer and a great actor but part of me resists facing the pain that you have to to achieve that

KAYE: What about on a personal level, or are the two indistinguishable for you?

TOYAH: For me they're indistinguishable

KAYE: How important is it to you that you are remembered?

TOYAH: I think being remembered is incredibly important. Again it's a slightly ego thing. If you're not remembered then you haven't changed anything in your lifetime. Change can be very subtle, so I think it's very sad to be forgotten because no one saw what you gave to others or your presence kind of helped the ongoing growth of generations

KAYE: So how would you like to be remembered then?

TOYAH: Oh, I haven't got a clue at all

KAYE: But you think so much about everything you've got to know


TOYAH: (asks herself) What would I like to be remembered for? I'd like to write a book that makes people think. Now, most books make me think but there's a book that I'd like to write and have the technical ability to write that wakes the soul up, because sometimes theoretically souls don't like to be woken up. They're more comfortable sleeping

KAYE: It's such a massive ambition -

TOYAH: I'll never achieve it! (laughs)

KAYE: Hopefully you will do it because somebody has to. But I'm thinking more of - I'm going back to the service in the Malvern Hills and thinking of your husband - if he is there standing up, or your father. What would they say about Toyah?

TOYAH: My father will laugh his head off and think “thank god she's gone!”

KAYE: He won't!

TOYAH: What will my father say about me? He's always thought that I think too much and he's always been very upset that I'm obviously not happy being a woman. He feels some kind of responsibility towards that

So I think he'd be very happy for me that if I had a sky burial that I've at least had something I want (laughs) And as for Robert I don't know what he'd think, really. He'd probably think “Oh, at last. I can have some peace”

KAYE: You don't believe that (Toyah laughs) Do you?

TOYAH: I don't know. I can't answer for them

KAYE: You can't fill in the blank “Toyah was”?

TOYAH: “Toyah was”. The one thing I often think - and this is my favorite subject, that's why I know so much on it. Theoretically, when you pass over, you face god. You face your god. And the big question is “what have you contributed in my name?”

I've been thinking and contemplating on this one a lot lately. What have I contributed in God's name? Because everything I've done has been an act of the self. Kind of I want this, I want that. I want to do that. What have I done in god's name? I can't answer it. Can not answer it

KAYE: Well, hopefully you've got some time left

TOYAH: Hopefully, yeah!

KAYE: Is it something you would address?

TOYAH: I think about it, yeah. I think about it often. I think it's a very good question, because it's the most unselfish question that you can be asked

KAYE: I haven't quite worked out yet, and I doubt very much whether I will work out whether you are happy in this life, but once you have gone to whatever is there anything you will miss about this life?

TOYAH: Performing. The only time I'm really happy is when I'm performing. The stage has been my church - whether it's acting, singing, presenting. There's a very unique focus about it. I've often felt when you're on stage acting in a play - if you've got it right here's a moment when the whole audience is one mind and you can feel it. Your skin starts tingling. Everything changes. And that's such an extraordinary feeling that nothing can replace it (below, Toyah on stage as "Trafford Tanzi" in 1983)


KAYE: The cod (an amateur) psychologist would say that's because you're not happy being you sitting in a dark room -

TOYAH: Well, obviously I'm an actress. I mean, yeah, you're right. I think it's very hard being one person. Very hard

KAYE: I don't think you ever have been (just one)

TOYAH: No

KAYE: How's the ceremony drawing to a close?

TOYAH: (laughs) By this time I've got David Bowie, Peter, Gabriel, Dawn French and Billie Whitelaw chained to the altar, and I own them

KAYE: I definitely want an invite (Toyah laughs)

TOYAH: I've made them witness the kind of condensed version of my life. How would it end? I think it has to go out with a 40 piece orchestra playing “I Want To Be Free” and people can join in karaoke style if they want

KAYE: And that's the end of the day?

TOYAH: Oh, no - they've got to go away, get extremely drunk and overeat. All my favorite foods will be there - just to be selfish. Foods from different cultures. From Turkey and India and China and Japan. There'd have to be a feast

KAYE: How do you think this day would make people feel? People who were there?

TOYAH: I would like them to feel confused, actually (Kaye laughs) and I'd also like them to think about their own funerals and the conclusions of their own life. And to realise that everything doesn't have to be in a compartment or a little box

KAYE: And an epitaph?

TOYAH: Oh, I always said my epitaph should be “she came, she lisped, she went” (Kaye laughs)

KAYE: I don't think you get anything better (they both laugh) Toyah, thanks so much for sharing your funeral with us. It has been utterly fascinating, and all of your other thoughts surrounding it

We are going to play that little request for you. You want to finish your ceremony with a rendition of “I Want To Be Free” so we have asked our woodwind trio to do that for you. So here you are. It's all for you

TOYAH: Great

A rendition of “I Want To Be Free” plays

Watch in the interview on Youtube HERE

TOYAH ON
LIVE TALK, ITV
WITH KAYE ADAMS
AND COLEEN NOLAN
AUGUST 2000

KAYE: Well, talking about wild things nobody was wilder in the 80's than our next guest – here she is: a warm welcome, please, to Toyah Willcox. Now, admit it, Toyah ... we were having a little chat there and she said “I don't have anything that I could repeat”

TOYAH: It's all totally X-certificate and not to do with me. It's to do with roadies

COLEEN: Oh, they're the worst

TOYAH: Roadies and their antics

KAYE: No, we're not going to go there

TOYAH: Don't go there

KAYE: No. The 80's was kind of seen as a wild time, wasn't it? And I mean your career has spanned 20 odd years, but at that time - early 80's - you were big, big, big in the pop business. You were very, very noticeable with your dramatic hairstyles, etc. Were these your kind of golden years? Do you look back on that?

TOYAH: Nope


KAYE: No?

TOYAH: I mean it was great. It was everything I wanted. I don't know if it was the same for you, but the 80's was just blind ambition and the ambition kind of ruined everything. If you just kind of went with it and had a really good time - then it would have been (the) golden years  

But nothing was good enough - even getting to number four (in the charts). The next time you had to get to number one or then the album had to be better than the last album

COLEEN: And (it's) different today. When you did get to number four or number one, you stayed there for good amount of weeks

TOYAH: And you got there because you sold well over 200,000 units. Whereas today - well recently, only about four years ago, a very famous woman got to number one, midsummer, selling 2000 units. Now, my last number four was selling 75,000 units a day. So it's a very different world now, but it was fun. It was everything I wanted

COLEEN: Was your image and all of that - was that what you wanted or did someone come along and say “look, this is the route you should go”

TOYAH: No. The problem was I started my image when I was about 14. I was a hair model at a place called Rackhams (department store) in Birmingham and I used to have my hair dyed. I had to go home wearing the scarf and mum would pull the scarf off and go “ahhhh” because my hair would be bright blue or something

So I was cultivating the image from a really early age. I felt like I was a different person, therefore I should look different. Why try and act normal? But when I became really famous with the huge hair, the huge makeup and everything, (so) the image became more important than the music. I spent more time doing photo sessions than actually writing. I think that is just a strange irony about the business

COLEEN: And you wrote all your own stuff?

TOYAH: I co-wrote. I co-wrote with my guitarist, Joel Bogen, and a keyboard player called Adrian Lee

COLEEN: And was it always like an expression of what you were going through?

TOYAH: Oh, totally - and a responsibility


KAYE: Were you always comfortable being different? I mean you say “I was different”. What made you different? I know that you were born with difficulty -

TOYAH: I think being born with a physical disability that was very, very minor, but it meant I limped and it meant I didn't talk very well. I didn't talk properly as such, until I was about six or seven after I had intensive physiotherapy and speech lessons. I was born with twisted spine, one leg longer than the other, no pelvic joints

KAYE: (That) wasn't that minor!

TOYAH: Well, it is because you can't see it. (I had) an amazing speech impediment that meant that I sprayed everyone within 24 feet of me with saliva. Now that wasn't really a problem. I could lead a normal life, but kids at school are very aware of things like that -

COLEEN: They're very cruel at school, aren't they?

TOYAH: As soon as I started in school it was like “oh, look at hopalong” (makes a mocking sound) They were cruel. That made me feel different. But the best thing about feeling different was the birth name my mother gave me, which is Toyah Pepita Budela

KAYE: (Intrigued) Where did she get than from?

TOYAH: She said she read it in a book. But I got a letter in 1981 from the Sheriff of Toyah in Arizona saying “do you know that Toyah is a Red Indian tribe and it's a lake meaning “giver of life” and it's overshadowed by Willcox mountain

KAYE: Oh, really?!

TOYAH: I said to my mum “did you look on the map?” and she said “no way”. But that name's been a real gift

KAYE: Why?

TOYAH: It's been like a talisman because no one's ever heard it before. I was obviously quirky physically, and certainly quirky in humor, and the name just seemed to join and complete the circles


COLEEN: But how did you overcome all of that to become what you became? I mean, a lot of kids going through that would have been timid, and didn't want to stand out

TOYAH: I was like that. I was like that till I was about 14 and then I got fed up of being bullied. I walked into school one day, and there was a particularly bright girl who took the mickey morning to night out of me and I whacked her over the head with a chair -

COLEEN: Oh, good for you! (they all laugh, the audience laughs)

KAYE: That's Coleen's kind of thing! She loves that!

TOYAH: But then it went from bad to worse, because then I became the bully -

COLEEN: Alright

TOYAH: I was perceived as the bully therefore I actually got off on being perceived as the bully and I became the bully. And it was quite different. I ended school with people just begging me to leave. “Please don't stay on and do your A-levels. Just go!”

KAYE: Is all this in your autobiography “Living Out Loud” (above)(shows the book)?

TOYAH: I wrote that – firstly it's flattering to be asked but I didn't have any role models as kid because women didn't dare misbehave. I've written that as a passage through life for anyone who's told 1. You're not bright. 1. You're not beautiful. 1. You can't do what your dreams want you to do. You can. If there's a will and there's discipline and determination, you can do it. And that's what the book's about

KAYE: Is it therapeutic? Writing an autobiography?

TOYAH: (It's) Cathartic

COLEEN: I don't know what that means (Toyah laughs)

KAYE: You get it all out, love. You get it all out

COLEEN: Thanks for that!

TOYAH: The timing of it is perfect because it's now firmly in the past in the old millennium. I like that timing. And if you ask me if 1981 were the golden years - no. Now are because I've never been happier and more kind of self-confident. I can really take life on and the odd wrinkle isn't going to stop me either


KAYE: So what's next? Because one thing, and we're not going to have time to talk about it unfortunately ... you have constantly reinvented yourself, which fascinates me. You've never been kind of stuck, or (thought) "this was my golden time, and I'm gonna hang on until death". You've always changed. What's coming up?

TOYAH: Well, I'm fairly lucky because I've got back into acting. So I've got a minuscule role in a new film that opens next month called “The Most Fertile Man In Ireland”, which is just stunning. A great comedy. I'm shooting "Aunt Boomerang" (above). I don't know if your children are young enough to watch "Aunt Boomerang", which is on BBC One

COLEEN: Yes. Love seeing you in that

TOYAH: So I do that and numerous other acting projects so I'm lucky

KAYE: Well, we look forward to hearing them. I hope you're going to stay for our phone call. But in the meantime, a warm round of applause for Toyah Willcox

Watch the interview on Youtube HERE

TOYAH ON
BBC RADIO SCOTLAND
SUNDAY MORNING
WITH CATHY MACDONALD
11.1.2026

CATHY: Now, sharing her spiritual life with us this morning is punk icon, writer and cult actress of both stage and screen, Toyah Willcox. Toyah first came to prominence in Derek Jarman's punk film "Jubilee", a role in the iconic Brit flick "Quadrophenia" followed alongside roles opposite such legends as Katharine Hepburn and Sir Laurence Olivier

And it's no mystery why, over 40 years on, Toyah is still making music. 13 hit singles and 24 albums on the love of music, which began in church, no less, has never left her. We'll hear more about her new show, "Songs & Stories", which will be touring Scotland in June. But first, a very warm welcome to "Sunday Morning", Toyah. Hi!

TOYAH: Good morning to you. It's lovely to be with you today

CATHY: And it's a pleasure to have you join us. Faith has always played a part in your life, I believe, but it was through your school in Birmingham, as opposed to your family. What was it that appealed to young Toyah about religion?

TOYAH: I was very young. Obviously, I started school at the age of four and a half, and it was a Church of England School opposite a church. So going to church was a very regular part of my life. I loved the ornate grandeur of the church and the grandeur of the songs that we sang. They were very liberating as a child - to suddenly be in that environment where you focused on music and the voice and it meant a lot to me

I never queried or questioned it. I loved my religious education. We had scripture classes in my school, but we also were a very liberal school when it came to religion. Obviously, being in Birmingham, we had Hindu children - I don't remember Islamic children, but we always honored the families and the children and the religion that they were born into. I found it fascinating learning about Shintoism, learning about Buddhism, as well as Catholicism and Church of England

It just made so much sense to me. Not the literal meaning of it, but the wonder of it. I always found those lessons probably the most rewarding rather than being stuck in mass or stuck in history or stuck in geography. The ones I looked forward to were the ones that allowed my imagination to soar


CATHY: Well, it certainly wasn't a passing phase because when you were only 14 you decided to get baptised and confirmed. Was there anything specific that made you take that leap? And what meaning did it have for you?

TOYAH: I had a lot of meaning. I'm the youngest of three children and both my brother and sister were christened and I wasn't. My mother had a very tough life. She was very badly damaged as a child because her father murdered her mother. We didn't know this, but my mother was severely depressive and had no sense of joy. There was just nothing positive in what she had to say

She felt I wasn't her child. I was born at home. The midwife came to the house, helped my mother give birth to me and my mother said to the midwife, apparently, “this is not my child.” That summed up our relationship. So by the time I was 14 and very free willed. I mean, my goodness, nothing could stop me. I was determined to get to London to be an actress and be a singer

My mother felt that because I hadn't been christened, I was possessed. So I went into religious education in Birmingham every evening, just one on one with our vicar across the road from the school and I was christened. My history teacher, Mrs. Beard was my godmother because no one wanted anything to do with me at this point in time

My family are not believers at all. My parents were there. They were gobsmacked, and then I got confirmed and to be honest I was ridiculed for this decision. My family have no belief whatsoever but I was utterly determined not to be bullied into making a joke of religion. It was obviously so important to the world that we are here on this planet and we're capable of prayer and we're capable of belief. I was brought up, thankfully, by my school to respect all religions

CATHY: It's very interesting because we're going to be discussing in the second hour of the show that very subject - talking about bringing faith into the public arena, how comfortable people feel discussing their personal faith and how comfortable people feel listening to it - so that's very, very interesting

For you, clearly, hugely important on your own but in many senses within the family. I know you've spoken about your difficult relationship with your mom. Knowing what you do know now and you know her own traumatic childhood - do you think you were trying to repair that relationship in terms of being baptized because she felt that perhaps that would have been . . . – no?


TOYAH: I mean, if I knew what I know now I would have fought all my life to get my mother help but you're talking about the early 1970's where you couldn't really talk about mental health. If my mother said something she was a superior therefore she was right. If I could go back to that 14 year old self and know what she'd been through I'd have fought tooth and nail to get her help so she could talk about what happened to her. She never even told my dad

So we all believed we were living with someone who was completely irrational, which was true, but we couldn't help her. So by the time I was 14 I was so rebellious. I was running away from home. I just did not want to be in the same building as my mother. As soon as I was 16 I started working and by the time I was 18 I left home

It was a very damaged relationship but all the time there was love there and this is my connection with my Christianity. For me love is the greatest power every living thing has, including animals. We are all emotional, deep thinking, deeply tuned creatures, and love is the compass that brings everything together and helps us find everything

Even though my mother could not emotionally support me in any way or say anything positive to me, there was love there and that's the bond that held us together. It's the bond that kept us together right through her life but it was a very fractured and an incredibly difficult relationship which just drove me away. But I never stopped loving her and I believe in her way she was trying to love me

CATHY: That's very insightful. I know that faith is a part of your life. These days you attend church, but you also enjoy religious buildings in the sense that you believe they maybe hold memories or energy, perhaps. Sacred spaces are important to you

TOYAH: I think prayer is incredibly important because I think we are very unique in our ability to pray. I think it's part of the human condition. You can call it meditation. You can call it deep meditation. You could call it prayer. But if we are able to communicate with this remarkable existence on this remarkable plane, we are able to bring the future to us

I've always loved churches. I used to live in Menton on the Italian border, right up until the Covid lockdown. There was the most remarkable church in Menton, which is in France. I would just go there every day, and it wasn't so much to hear the scriptures. It was to be in the building and to feel what humanity had done to that building

I think when you've got places of worship, and even going back through history before Christianity, places of worship are very, very powerful and very rewarding and I believe the power of prayer can change things for the better


CATHY: Life after death for you is also something you believe is intrinsically linked to a changing relationship with time. Can you tell us more about this?

TOYAH: Yeah, the only people I get angry with is atheists who try to drum it into me that our energy doesn't continue. I just think it's blindingly obvious that we are divine sparks in human form, and that spark never dissipates. So I believe we're here to experience time. In eternity you can't experience time, but you can revisit when you've been here. This is a plane that vibrates at a certain level. You've got the fourth dimension, which is about time

For me, eternity is where time just doesn't travel. So to come here allows us to develop and become stronger, for that spark to become stronger. I do not believe that Toyah Willcox is going to live forever and I find huge comfort in that because I've been Toyah Willcox for long enough. This whole thing about moving on and experiencing new things is about the whole experience and energy of this universe and greater kind of solar system. So I just cannot fathom when people can't experience that we are more than the flesh

I felt that for a long, long time - even as a child I actually used to freak my mother out that I had this deep, deep belief of otherness and connection to her past and to my father's past. It's an ongoing bond and the greatest thing we can honor it with is love

I listened to your last speaker who was absolutely fascinating - that algorithms within social media are driving us apart. We cannot allow this to happen to us because the greatest thing we can give this world in our lives is love. And whatever you believe in, whatever you're born into, love is the greatest language we have

CATHY: Well, we're going to talk more to Toyah Willcox but we're going to pause for some music. You've chosen David Bowie's “Life On Mars” and you can tell me about why or why it's significant after we've heard it

The song plays


CATHY: Remembering David Bowie who died 10 years ago yesterday. Great track. Why is that particularly specific to you?

TOYAH: I think it means a lot to my generation. It's an astounding piece of music. I mean, musically it's just absolutely perfect, but the sentiment of it is dystopian and it's very, very broken. I remember hearing it and falling in love with the romanticism of it. Certainly fell madly in love with David Bowie and the fact that he was otherworldly and that you look up to the stars and wonder what experiences they are having, i.e is there life on Mars?

But for me that brokenness of seeing that everything around you is not working in your favor and giving you the strength to just walk away from it. That was very powerful to me. The song became a lucky charm as well. I sang it at my very first audition for a BBC Two drama called “Glitter” when I was 17. I got the part and I ended up at the National Theatre

Then I ended up working with (Derek) Jarman and Katharine Hepburn and I put it all down to the luck of that song. So it's very deeply embedded in me as a masterful, brilliant song but also something that has opened doors for me

CATHY: Marking a milestones in your life, because as you said you couldn't wait to leave home. You left Birmingham, you went to London and that would have been during very exciting years, because I think we're similar ages, to be honest

You were a teen hair model. You became a drama graduate and then of course all of this excitement with the National Theatre started. Tell me a little about your Mayhem warehouse years in the early 80's, as it was at the centre of the punk art scene, wasn't it? That must have been exciting!

TOYAH: I moved into this warehouse. It was actually about 1976 - it could have been '77. It's a long time ago! It was just an empty warehouse and it had really thick, almost two inch thick glass panes everywhere because it was used to make acid. So we used those panes as flooring. But very quickly this became the hottest place in London

We had people like Iggy Pop rehearse there, John Cale of the Velvet Underground, Hazel O'Connor formulated the music for the movie “Breaking Glass” there. It was the hot spot. I remember we used to rent it out to Steve Strange (above with Toyah) every weekend or every other weekend and he'd have four day parties from Friday to Monday. They were 24 hour parties. Every cycle of the day he'd be in there making music. I can remember seeing Boy George in the audience, (and) Leigh Bowery

It was in intensely crazy. I cannot tell you. We would have up to 450 people in this very small area. Spandau Ballet gave their first ever live performance there. It was a really uncomfortable place to be. It had one toilet, no door on the bathroom (Cathy laughs) Yet people loved being there

They found it inspiring and it attracted a community that went on to create the new wave movement, the New Romantic movement and the kind of real glamorous rock and roll that started to develop in the early 80's. It all kind of happened in this building (Toyah at Mayhem, below) which had no heating and one tap


CATHY: Yeah, but art will find art. It must have been exciting. The names you've just listed off there are so well known and but at the time, clearly, very young and waiting for their break. You met your husband, a musician and founder member of King Crimson, Robert Fripp when you were both stars, but your love story is quite an unusual one, isn't it?

TOYAH: It's very unusual. I don't think it could ever happen again. He had a premonition. My husband has dreams that become very real. He had a premonition that his diary wasn't filling for this three week period. It was about 1984 or '85. He was living in New York and he thought “there's a reason for this. I'm going to go back to England”

He spent time with his mum. He felt that he was going to meet his wife so he came back to England. We were both sharing a taxi - this is pure coincidence - with our management going to a Nordoff Robbins music event. It's a music charity in London. And he realised I was his wife (Cathy laughs) and he proposed. It was just like out of the blue. I said, “well, can I get to know you first?” And he said, “well, you can, but I know you're my wife.” So he proposed in the first week we met each other

CATHY: That's incredible. What did you say? I mean, obviously you said "yes" (laughs)

TOYAH: Well, it's a really complex thing, because we made an album together. We did a charity album ("The Lady Or The Tiger", 1986) together to raise money for a children's school in Washington DC. We did very quickly fall in love with each other and by the end of that album he said, “I absolutely know you're my wife. We're together for life. Will you marry me?” And I said, “well, I still would like to get to know you.” So within nine months we were married

CATHY: Oh, that's amazing. That's wonderful. And so hopeful for anyone listening out there - at the beginning of a new year you never know what's around the corner. We must talk about your your UK tour. 49 dates, "Stories & Songs". You're heading to Scotland in June. Tell me a little about it?


TOYAH: Well, I'm really looking forward to coming to Scotland with this because Scotland has always been incredibly good to me and I can't wait to be with these particular audiences. This is a show that has two acts. There's music, there's very much the hits. And I tell stories that I don't otherwise get the chance to tell. So I've written a book called “Meteorite”, which is a visual autobiography of my life going behind the scenes

So within the very intimate settings of these venues that I'm going to be doing in Scotland and and the rest of the UK I want to be able to tell you stories that have developed me as a person but I've never had the luxury of time to tell. Like working with David Bowie – David Bailey, the photographer. I will talk about experiences with David Bowie. They're very few, but very powerful

I just want to go right behind the scenes and be really insightful. I find that with my shows a lot of daughters bring their mothers or vice versa. It's one of these shows that is inspirational. I very rarely talk about this in the press but I'm a child of disability, which was very problematic for my mother, who was a very beautiful dancer when she was young

So the fact that I was so rebellious was because I was not going to be pigeonholed into someone that could not move forward through life because I was physically disabled. So it's very inspirational, very open, very truthful. And also very funny, because there's stories like when I was 18 I got arrested in Trafalgar Square for busking on Christmas Day

I'm telling these stories about always being in trouble and always being in the wrong yet being in the right place at the right time. So that's what it's going to be about. Lots and lots of laughter, lots of insightful stories and brilliant music  

CATHY: Absolutely and people are looking forward to it. I know I am, certainly after hearing this. Toyah, it's been a joy talking to you this morning. Thank you for sharing your spiritual life with us

TOYAH: Thank you, Cathy

Listen to the interview