TOYAH ON
BBC RADIO DERBY
THE ANDY POTTER SHOW
31.7.2015

ANDY POTTER: The Flashback Festival in Clumber Park and you're part of this huge machine, aren't you?

TOYAH: (on the phone) Well, yes! I mean it's a two day festival … the weather … it's going to be fantastic – I'm telling you that now! And yes, I can't wait! It's going to be great fun!

ANDY: Doing these things though, doing open air gigs like this - do you spend your summer then looking at weather reports to see where you're going to be playing and what it's going to be like?

TOYAH: No. On the day of the event I do look at the weather report because it does makes me think what am I going to wear? But it doesn't alter my attitude towards that day. Firstly we live in Great Britain – we're used to the rain and secondly if we get sunshine it's just a bonus on what's going to be a brilliant day anyway

And with Clumber, I hope I'm not tempting fate here ... I've played there five or six times – we've never had bad weather. So I expect the same this time

ANDY: These are so big and there are so many artists as well. Do you have do a lot of self editing about what you're going to be performing, what you're going to do?

TOYAH: That's a really good question and thank you for asking. If I'm playing a nightclub or a show, an evening where it's just me my music tends to be a lot more diverse. I kind of plunder the 28 albums I've made and go for the singles as well as the obscure songs. With a show like this we want it to be hit after hit after hit

Also I go on stage knowing that I'm playing to people that might not know anything about me because they might be there to see Jason Donovan or they're there to see Marc Almond or The Human League

Therefore I'm there to win new fans so I want songs that are my hits as well as songs that I think are utterly brilliant that they might not know about, which are off one of my platinum albums. And then we also have this thing that we don't do a outdoor gig without doing Guns N' Roses “Sweet Child Of Mine” because it's one of those songs that we feel is written for outdoors and it's recognised as one of the greatest songs ever written. So it is a performance where we take the audience into account.  We want every song to be wonderful for the audience

ANDY: And you've watched that audience change as well, you see the parents and -

TOYAH: Oh, yeah!

ANDY: The grandparents and the kids and everybody's enjoying the same music, aren't they?

TOYAH: I've been in the business for 37 years and I've got fans that have stayed with me for 37 years and are now grandparents. There's a show I'm touring at the moment, an acoustic show, where it's mainly a sit down show and I'm seeing three generations of people. Bringing their grandchildren to come and see me because they want them to know about me

So there will be all age groups at Clumber Park and that is what's so astonishing. Another astonishing fact for me is that the majority of the audience is going to be under 25 and they know everything about you. They know your lyrics, they know who you are and they're totally into you so it's just wonderful!

I'm so grateful and so excited about still doing this in front of this audience that has grown up with you but also has new additions as well

ANDY: And also you've done many different things and they know you for many different things – not just for music. There's the acting -

TOYAH: There's the acting, "Teletubbies" – that's going change because the new Teletubbies is being made now and I'm not involved with it -

ANDY: Are you gutted about that?

TOYAH: Well, I wouldn't say I'm gutted because everything needs to change and needs new generations but I'm not exactly sitting at home twiddling my thumbs! (Andy laughs) I've got two movies out this year and at the moment I'm filming a BBC drama. I've never been busier

So no, I wouldn't use the term gutted but I did get in touch with them and I said I would happily be involved again. It could be they come back to me because they're not at that stage of adding the voices yet. So who knows? But I respect that things change for a reason

ANDY: That was a morning's work and you don't know what the programme is going to be like and then it just becomes a huge phenomenon. It takes you by surprise!

TOYAH: A morning's work? It took me five minutes! (Andy laughs) I did it because the creator Anne Wood is a friend and she said would I come in and do her a favour? She was worried that she was going to loose her house because she mortgaged her house to make it

The BBC didn't want it and then they lost the programme and they said OK, we'll put "Teletubbies" on because we need to fill the gap. Then within three months it made the BBC3 a billion pounds. So you're right ... I didn't know what I was getting into and I didn't know how successful it would be

But my goodness! The one time I've needed security, because my name was at the end of the programme and wherever I went in the world I could not go without security during that time

You can listen to the interview HERE