TOYAH ON
CHERRY RED TV
WITH IAN MCNAY
4.11.2020

IAIN McNAY: So welcome to Cherry TV. I’m Iain McNay and my guest today is Toyah. Hi Toyah.

TOYAH: Hello!

IAIN: We’re going to talk about Toyah and her life and her work but not going to focus on too much on the details of the music and the films and the presenting which were the three main careers, but we're going to go more deep and find out, if you like, the more inner Toyah. What motivates her, her challenges in life, things like that. So let's start when you were young. You were dyslexic -

TOYAH: I was dyslexic - which I still am. You don’t really get over it. I’m 62 now. So when my dyslexia was discovered it was about 1963. And people didn't know quite what to do with it, and they certainly didn't know that dyslexia has quite an artistic quality about it. So within the education system of the three R’s, I was just instantly written off.

So I had a very wonderful teacher around the age of six who presented me with phonetic books which I could read immediately, and that established that I actually had high IQ. So I was given these phonetic books, and as soon as they were taken off me again, whoosh - back to the bottom of the class. So I occasionally had very good teachers who could see that I had a lot to offer, but I just didn't fit into the system.

IAIN: And how is that for you when you went down to the bottom of the class again? That must’ve been pretty hard, wasn't it?

TOYAH: It was frustrating, but I think as a child you don't see that as a reflection on your future. So I had other things to contend with. Very prominent gait, which is a limp. And daily physio to straighten my spine and a really bad speech impediment. So there was a lot going on that drew attention to me.

IAIN: You had a lisp, didn’t you?

TOYAH: It was a bit more than a lisp. I actually couldn't physically form words, so there's a lot to contend with there, but it got me a lot of attention and I think it was like a double edged sword. I loved the attention. I was called Toyah, which everyone is fascinated by and I was also physically visually disabled. I don't like to use the word disabled because I don't think it's ever stopped me doing anything, and I think disabled is a negative connotation in the use of the word back then. But also, I was absolutely fearless. I was doing things from the moment I knew I was an independent human being that took people's breath away. Really dangerous things. I’d scale a building. I'd scale a wall. I would jump off a wall -

IAIN: So you would climb up a building?

TOYAH: I would just do anything. Yeah, you’d find me on rooftops.

IAIN: (laughs) Really?

TOYAH: Yeah, so people knew that okay, I didn't quite function like everyone else, but they knew I was high entertainment value.

IAIN: But where did that come from? Because it's like you would think OK, children are fearless to some extent, but that is a little bit more than fearless. When did that sort of energy idea come from that you could do things like that?

TOYAH: Well, I think biologically I'm one chromosome short of being a man -

IAIN: Really?

TOYAH: Yeah, I really do think that. I'm a man up there (touches her head) so we've explored this in my life history quite a lot. Especially medically - I will get to this, but I've had massive correction surgery. I was born the youngest. I had a brother five years older (Kim, below with Toyah and their father Beric) and a sister eight years older. I identified more with my brother than perhaps my sister. My sister was very sensible. Very talented and very traditionally intelligent. I fought physically, for fun, with my brother, physically for fun with my father. We’d have wrestling matches -

IAIN: So you were quite strong?

TOYAH: Ridiculously strong and whenever I was asked what I wanted for Christmas, my answer was guns. I want guns. And I used to just dismantle anything female given to me. So if my mother gave me a doll, it would just get dismembered. I did not identify -

IAIN: Not dismantled but dismembered? (laughs)

TOYAH: They were just pulled apart. And it was a huge problem for my mother. I went to a very traditional all girl school where even the underwear was regulation uniform. My mother could not physically dress me in stuff if I disapproved of it. I would just literally fight with teeth gritted and she used to have to sit on me to dress me. So I was very independent and I had a free will.

IAIN: Obviously. You have a book, an autobiography, which is interesting but you’re talking there about actually been interested in Satanism when you were about eleven?

TOYAH: Yeah, I think that was just pure rebellion. It terrified the life out me. There was a lot I was going through at the time and I just did not want to conform in any way to the school for my family. If they asked me to do something, I'll do the opposite and for me, Satanism is now what I call otherness, I'm very into anything outside of thinking that this (gestures around herself) is what it is.

So when I was reading books about things I was never taught at school like Salem and the burning of the witches in Ipswich. And the kind of Spanish Inquisition - we weren't taught this at school, but basically when I bought books on Satanism I was also buying books on poetry and becoming very interested in rock music. But those books allowed me to see another side of female history that for me was very, very important and very ... It was part of my identity that I could say to everyone at school, who were saying what I was instinctively feeling ... they were saying I was wrong. "You are wrong. You are not you. What you're feeling is not you". I mean I got this all the time. I could say, "well, actually, why don't you teach me about this? Why is this irrelevant?"

So to learn that in Ipswich 3000 women were burnt as witches who happened to be midwives, who happened to be landowners, who happened to be very powerful tribe women. The leaders. Why was I not taught this? Why was I told that I was going to have lots of babies and marry a rich man and just disappear? That was my education. And I kind of rebelled against it from day one.

IAIN: And music wise in the early stage you went to see Black Sabbath, Hawkwind, Led Zeppelin ...

TOYAH: Broke into the venues -

IAIN: You broke in? You didn’t pay?

TOYAH: No! And I was very small. You've got to remember. I mean, even now from behind people think I'm a child. The wonderful thing about the Bullring Shopping Centre, which existed back then, was the models. And this is traditional about being a woman. Even the models during the shows had to put their makeup on in the public loos outside of the venue.

So I would go into the ladies (toilet) in the Bullring Shopping Centre, and you could see the models putting their make-up on … “Would you go backstage and open the fire exits?” and they would so I would get in through the fire exits. Watch the show. So I saw Hawkwind at 11, really didn't understand what was going on because that lovely naked lady - do you know her name?

IAIN: Stacia

TOYAH: Stacia was going round the audience completely naked and I was just thinking please fuck off! Leave me alone! And there are men offering me what looked like aspirin all night. But I just loved it. I loved the energy. I loved the lighting, the madness of it. Then I saw Black Sabbath, who are so loud they made my ears want to bleed. I just didn't understand why I was the only woman in there. It was all men just shaking their heads. And again I got one of the women, one of the girlfriends of the band, who was putting her makeup on in the public loos outside the venue, to just go and open the exit doors and let me in.

IAIN: You had a lot of initiative in those days. For a young person that was a lot of initiative to do that  . . .

TOYAH: I think because my parents were fresh out of World War II. They were quite strong people, free minded, survivors. I think that survival instinct of that generation came into my DNA. I think it's a perfectly natural progression for children to end up with that sense of survival about them. In my generation.

IAIN: Yeah. And then something else interesting I picked up from your book was there was like a presence in your room at home . . . 

TOYAH: Yeah, this was something that no one could understand. There were events going on in my room. I can only just give you the information. I can't even try and explain. One was a voice and a pressure that used to put me down into the bed. Really pushing me down until I couldn't breathe and the voice was like (does a demonic voice) “I’m going to fuck you, I’m going to fucking kill you, you little fucker”.

So there's that one which was terrifying. But then at the same time, there was a remarkable one which was very tall, very silver, very benign  . . . who could take me out of my body, out of the room. He used to take me up into the stars and teach me mathematical equations.

But one of the most beautiful experiences I had with this particular consciousness was he – and I call him a he - he took me to a gas cloud. And the gas cloud was the most extraordinary pure colours. And as we got closer these spheres were passing through each other, making notes so every note and every sphere was connecting by notational experience.

And we went into this gas cloud and there was this huge monolithic building with an entrance and that was it. That was it. The creature who I encountered at least four times during this period said this is where souls exist. These are souls out of the body in what’s called an eternity. And I woke up in bed. I loved that conscious creature -

IAIN: But was there a part of you that thought it was a dream?

TOYAH: No.

IAIN: So you knew this was another reality?

TOYAH: The only time I ever thought it was bizarre was why was this consciousness teaching the mathematical equations? Because I am so dyslexic. I'm number blind. No, those experiences were gorgeous and they gave me incredible confidence. They took away fear of death. They took away fear of other people. They took away fear of life. These were very, very bright, tangible experiences.

IAIN: And were there other people you could talk to about this?

TOYAH: My mother was terrified. I absolutely freaked her. No, not until many years later when I encountered a healer called Phyllis did she say to have a dialogue. But at the same time, my sister (Nicola, above with Toyah in 2021), who is eight years older, was working in the cancer wards, Dudley Road hospital in Birmingham. And people are dying daily, obviously because cancer was really incurable back then. So my father, my sister and I were experiencing the souls of the people who died.

So the way this manifested was, my sister would be woken up by the bedding flying off her in the middle of the night, and there would be one of the elderly patients, who passed that day, standing next to the bed. My father experienced that and I was experiencing something beyond that which felt demonic, but also felt incredibly spiritually enlightening

IAIN: Wow!

TOYAH: Yeah. So my mother at this time was locking herself in her bedroom. She was so afraid. So my mother felt that it was coming for me because I was never Christened, never confirmed. I was put straight into religious education. I was Christened, confirmed. No one wanted to be my Godparents. No one wanted to be near me (laughs) And I was exorcised. Which is ridiculous.

IAIN: One of the things that you mentioned quite a lot in the book in your early years was you are lonely. Yet with all this going on I wonder what you meant by being lonely? Was it lonely on the kind of the personal basis?

TOYAH: I think that loneliness comes from probably being slightly Aspergic that there's this feeling of not finding soul mates or deep connections. So I think that it's possibly part of my biological condition. I don't feel loneliness any more, but I do feel separateness and that distresses me.

IAIN: Because you didn’t fit in in those days?

TOYAH: Never fitted in -

IAIN: Also you talked about – you had two Asian girlfriends -

TOYAH: Oh! Adorable!

IAIN: Who were sort of kindred souls to some extent -

TOYAH: And also the family. Absolutely adorable because my mother just couldn't take me being in the house so the family took me in when things were really bad - this wonderful Hindi family just took me in. And as I arrived through the front door and the mother, gorgeous gorgeous woman, said “you are not corrupting my daughters!” I was thinking they've corrupted me! They’re worse than me! Wonderful, wonderful friends. (Toyah with Gita Jaraij in 1987, below)

IAIN: And I also picked up from the book that you said you were quite obsessed with aliens at that stage as well. I guess that was to do with these these entities that you saw -

TOYAH: Yeah, you're right, you're correct. But what I didn't realise is probably the entity was what's now known as Grey, which aren't really alien. They're part of this earth energy. But I think what I was interested in and I still am and it reflects in all my work and I say that regrettably because it sometimes makes my work impenetrable . . .

So say at the age of 13, reading "Lord Of The Rings", reading "The Hobbit", studying Asimov, studying Philip K. Dick . . . All of that was interesting to me. I wasn't interested in reading Dickens or "The Kracken Wakes" which was my O-level piece. It just wasn't me.

IAIN: And then David Bowie came along and you could kind of identify with "Starman" -

TOYAH: Yeah, very much. I think Marc Bolan and T. Rex were a big eye opener. They were for me what I call otherness. They allowed me to step away from this enforced normality of my home life. But Bowie, as "Starman", I first saw him on "Lift Off With Ayshea" about 72’ and there was this remarkable creature in an all-in-one suit with makeup on, with bright red hair.

It was just the most extraordinary visual experience and almost a confirming experience that we are different, we are individuals. We can be different, were permitted to be different and I never looked back from that moment.

IAIN: And then you apparently, when you took your maths O-level ... you weren’t very good at maths, so you wrote as the answers the lyrics to “Life On Mars”

TOYAH: Everything was written right up my sleeve. So I had a white sleeve so all the calculations were on that cuff (Iain laughs) I didn’t get maths. I got music theory, but nothing else.

IAIN: And then I gather the career advisor at the school gave you some good advice -

TOYAH: I was very naughty at school so -

IAIN: Surprise surprise!

TOYAH: Yeah, it was known I was going to be a problem. So when my mother and my father went to the headmistress and they were saying how I was behaving, what was going on in the home ... My mother was sent to the Samaritans -

IAIN: She was sent to the Samaritans?

TOYAH: Yeah. The headmistress knew that when it came to this career advice experience that I was going to be a problem. And I had two teachers who really championed me. One was my art teacher, Karen Howell, who just could see I should not be in a conventional school. I should have been in a stage school. I had a music teacher called Miss Nelson who again championed me. She just said "this woman is a natural musician". Shirley Williams, who realised I could write.

So they were sticking up for me, but when it came to my parents going to see the headmistress - my headmistress said to my parents, who were fee paying parents “She's got a nice figure, she'll meet someone and have babies”. That's what my father paid for.

I met the career advice lady and she literally gave me two options. You can work in a bank or be a nurse and I said "no, I'm going to be a singer and actress" and she said "well, that doesn't happen to people". And I said "well, it’s going to happen to me."

IAIN: I had a very similar experience when I was at school and I left school when I was 16 and the advice from the career advisor was that I should be a bank clerk. That's kind of what they said in those days, wasn’t it?

TOYAH: It was. It was very, very vanilla

IAIN: The advice didn't get acted on, did it?

TOYAH: No. If anything it really confirmed to me that my rebellion was right.

IAIN: So you found a way to get into drama school?

TOYAH: Yeah, well this is a family story. Where we are here today is where I came every weekend of my childhood. The River Avon is just at the end of the garden. My father had a boat. There was a caravan they kept the children on. Part of that community was a man called Jack Johnson, who was the Controller of BBC Pebble Mill. And he said to my parents "this child should be in drama school".

So he nominated me into the Birmingham Old Rep Theatre School. I started going there from the age of 14. I studied dance, studied drama, went there Friday evenings through the weekends. And that kind of is my saving grace and then from the age of 17 to 18 I went there full time.

IAIN: So you then had the chance to go do a film called “Glitter”?

TOYAH: Yes, so when I went to drama school I really started to be who I wanted to be. I was making my own clothes. There's a story that slightly preempts this period. My mother took me to a very famous department store to have my hair cut. And the person that cut my hair was a man called Derek Goddard, who is now a neighbour. And he loved my natural chestnut hair. He said would I become his hair model and I said yes. This is against my mother knowing.

So when my mother took me there to have my hair cut, Derek also dyed my hair bright blue and I went home with a headscarf on and kept that headscarf on for three days until my mother had the courage to pull it off my head. And when she saw the blue hair, she screamed. She cried. She contacted the school. She threatened Derek and there's nothing anyone can do about it. I became a hair model and I travelled up and down the UK, with Derek doing hair shows. Liverpool, London -

IAIN: So there was a practical reason to have blue hair?

TOYAH: Oh yeah -

IAIN: It was rebellion but -

TOYAH: But I was still only about 15 years old at this point so it was fabulous. I mean it had such a bad reaction … buses wouldn't let me on the bus. People would shout. “What are you? A clown?” at me because this was pre punk. If I ever had to get a taxi, they wouldn't let me in -

IAIN: Is that right?

TOYAH: There was just an inbuilt prejudice against this different colour hair. People would just shout in my face “are you fucking mad?!” It was remarkable.

IAIN: But how were you with those reactions?

TOYAH: I just … deadpan. By this time Toyah was just deadpan, I gave nothing to people. I just would not even respond. They didn't exist.

IAIN: But you have to be tough to do that.

TOYAH: You had to be tough to be a punk back then and I hadn't discovered punk yet, so I was completely outside of the mould. So you ask about “Glitter”. I was building a reputation in Birmingham for being the girl with strange coloured hair.

And two brothers, the Bicat brothers - one was a scriptwriter, one was a musician – were looking for a girl to star in a play called “Glitter” on BBC2 about a young girl who breaks into the Top Of The Pops Studios to sing. And they could not find this girl because everyone they were sent was so honed and so polished that they looked as though they’d come straight out of stage school.

So they ended up at BBC Pebble Mill where I was doing extra work and the wardrobe department said to them “you've got to see this girl called Toyah Wilcox. She's renowned in Birmingham for being very odd”. So they came to see me at drama school and they knew immediately I was that character. And I had to go through an audition process, ironically with Phil Daniels who I later did “Quadrophenia” with and we both got the part.

IAIN: Yeah, I watched a bit of it on Youtube -

TOYAH: What - “Glitter”?

IAIN: Yes!

TOYAH: Oh God - I’m so fucking awful in it!.

IAIN: Well, it’s formative years. It’s interesting -

TOYAH: Yeah, it was lovely experience because Bilbo Baggins, the band that I wrote two songs with … they were gorgeous to me. I was 17 turning 18. It was undoubtedly the highlight of my life. It was that special.

IAIN: Yeah. Bilbo Baggins were managed by Tam Paton. He managed the Bay City Rollers. I knew Tam quite well -

TOYAH: They were adorable. They were so kind to me. Loved them dearly

IAIN: So you saw The (Sex) Pistols?

TOYAH: Yes. So I was about 15 going on 16 or 16 going on 17 . . . It’s a bit vague for me. And a Bowie lookalike friend of mine called Steve said "you've got to go and see this band called The Sex Pistols at a club called Bogarts, New Street, Birmingham. This is a movement called punk rock". So I went on my own. Walked into the venue -

IAIN: Was it blue hair?

TOYAH: It was probably green and yellow by then (Iain laughs) I walked into the venue and it was literally … “fuck!” There was 350 kids that were all like like me. It was like suddenly finding family. They all had dyed hair. They've made their own clothes. They didn't give a fuck about what was going on outside. They were all individual, highly individual and I just realised that it was a generational shift. We found each other.

IAIN: So for you that gave you more - it sounds like you were quite confident anyway, but it gave you more of a feeling that this can move forward for you?

TOYAH: It gave me a community. Because obviously The Sex Pistols came from London. They didn't have a good show that night. I mean, Johnny found us unresponsive. We didn’t know how to behave. So I had learnt to just be blank, show a blank face to virtually everyone around me.

So I was standing there with a blank face and I know a lot of other adience members were as well, so he wasn't getting the response he was used to in London. We didn't know what to do, so he exited the stage about three times, but it was still life changing event for me -

IAIN: Absolutely. I think he was for many people, yeah. And then you actually did go to London?

TOYAH: When “Glitter” showed three months later, it was shown on BBC2. I put an ad in the stage newspaper saying who I was, what I was appearing in, not represented by an agent. Kate Nelligan, the actress and the director, Maximilian Schell, the German film star, was about to make his directorial debut at the National Theatre. They watched it.

And they called me down to the National Theatre literally the next day to audition for “Tales From The Vienna Woods” (above), an adaptation by Christopher Hampton - for me to play "Emma" in that. I got it so I moved to London, literally two days after “Glitter” showed. I ended up in London working with Brenda Blethyn, Warren Clarke, Kate Nelligan, Elizabeth Spriggs. They were all megastars of TV and drama. They were just wow!

IAIN: And did you see this as your right? That isn't quite what I mean, but did you see this as what should be happening in terms of you were putting the effort in, you were being different from the rest, you were trying to be yourself and you had this drive. Were you surprised all this took off, or were you thinking well, this should be happening and -

TOYAH: It was all of those things. I didn't understand what was happening. School didn't prepare me for anything. I didn't know how to get a phone account, a gas account and an electric account. The bank account. I knew none of that. So suddenly here I was in London at the biggest theatre in the world with the biggest stars in the whole of this hemisphere. And I really didn't know how to behave or didn't know how to fit in. So it was wildly exciting.

I thought I just need to be a punk rocker - that's getting me the attention I want so I was quite brash and badly behaved. Kate Nelligan allowed me to live in her basement, thank goodness, because I don't think I would have known how to get a bedsit. Brenda Blethyn offered me her sofa to live on. It was all a massive learning curve with a lot happening and I was, I think, actually very ill equipped for it. I was a rough diamond.

So in retrospect I should have gone to the National, taken every acting lesson available to me and met everyone available to me and hunkered down and do the studying I should have done for the last 14 years. But I didn't, I was just a wild child. I was running amok around the green room with Albert Finney. I was running amok around London.

So even though I was the one got who got picked in all the reviews by the critics as the one to watch, I probably wasn't hunkering down enough and doing the studying I should have done. But that said I was going from strength to strength. I was an immediate star in that environment.

IAIN: But you also – again I pull from the book - you also sent 200 letters and photos to every theatre, TV company and film company you could find?

TOYAH: Oh yeah -

IAIN: So you put the effort in?

TOYAH: Oh yeah, I did that, absolutely. The woman who played my mother in “Glitter”, Doremy Vernon, was a wonderful mentor. And she told me what I had to do (it). She said "you've got to write to everyone by Spotlight", which was this huge book and she said "find out who has a good female quota – write (to) them all".

So I think I must have written to Dembry and had them print up 500 photos, 500 CV’s. I got 500 envelopes. I took my savings of £100 out of the bank account mum and dad got for me and I wrote to every single agent I felt was suitable. And they virtually all replied.

IAIN: Yeah, it worked. Tell me about how you met a guy called Joel (Bogen, in the middle below) and you formed a band together? Tell me how all that came about because again I picked up from the book that your first gig was at a synagogue, which I find quite strange . . .

TOYAH: When I moved to the National Theatre and I was there I think about 6 - 7 months, I was meeting musicians. My priority was to sing. It was all I ever wanted, but I also had incredible stage nerves and I didn't have confidence as a singer. I met musicians, so the first one I met was a very charismatic writer called Glen Marks who lived in Golders Green cemetery.

IAIN: (baffled) He lived in the cemetery?

TOYAH: His father was the caretaker of the cemetery -

IAIN: Oh, I see . . .

TOYAH: So they lived in the gatehouse there. One of the first calls I got from Glen Marks was "come and watch Marc Bolan's funeral", which I didn't. I didn't want to see that funeral, but you know, that's where the funeral was. So Glen, myself and other band members, we got together. We wrote half an hour’s worth of music. The first gig we did in that particular band was Dagenham Ford works in the cafe. It was fun, but probably disastrous and after that Glenn said "I think you should meet someone who's a more advanced musician".

And that was Joe Bogen who lived in Golders Green. He went to Golders Green school or college ... ? I can't quite remember, but Joel and I instantly hit it off and he trusted that I could sing and was a lyricist and we just set to work finding musicians, putting a band together, rehearsing every Sunday, which was still a day off back then.

Writing material and eventually we had enough material to play his college. And what I remember about that - it was a good gig. Joel had a huge following and lots of respect from his peers. I think Will Self was in that audience. There was a BBC correspondent in that audience. It was quite something – terrifying  . . .

IAIN: But it came together quickly again, didn't it?

TOYAH: Everything came together quickly because after that gig we started to just get endless gigs in pubs around the UK, which was a really healthy punk circuit -

IAIN: But it's something about you energetically. When you put your mind to something it seems to happen fast?

TOYAH: Back then everything happened last, everything fell in my lap. I have this theory that every young person has a time where the universe works on their behalf and then you're just cast adrift to make it work yourself. It just felt that everything was coming to me. I don't know if I drove that or not.

IAIN: Yes. I think you did from what you said about the effort you put into things and then the film “Jubilee” came along?

TOYAH: Yes, well, I was at the National Theatre. Another actor at the National in a different production was Ian Charleson, who was made instantly famous by “Chariots Of Fire”. Ian was just adorable. Always hung out with Julie Walters, they were just the most gorgeous embracing actors. And Ian said "I think you should come and meet Derek Jarman, he's a film director. He's making a punk movie and I think he’d really be interested in meeting you".

So we went along to his apartment in Tregunter (Road) in Kensington. Derek handed me a script and at the time it was called “Down With The Queen” and he said "just pick a part, but don't pick "Amyl", that's being played by Jordan", so I literally leafed through the script and picked the character with the most lines. So I was very ambitions and that happened to be “Mad”. “Mad” is a pyromaniac who set fire to everything and everyone. And I thought, yeah, I can really play that.

IAIN: Because you thought "I know this person" -

TOYAH: Yeah, I know this person! Derek just went, yeah. I mean, how easy is that? A life changing movie. My first ever movie.

IAIN: I wrote down – you said in your book you were in and then you were out. So you have to fight to get back in again?

TOYAH: Well, Derek made that possible. Derek was told he had to cut the amount of characters. Characters are expensive in films. If you have multiple characters, you've got higher costs. So Derek was told to cut the cost by getting rid of the character. So Derek contacted me and he said "I'm really sorry - we had to cut “Mad”" and I was broken. Really broken because I was coming out of my contract with the National Theatre. I was not knowing where it's going to go to next. I pinned all my hopes on this first movie.

And I think Derek, being an emapth, realised how it affected me very negatively and we kind of lost contact for about three weeks. I didn't have my phone, he didn’t know how to find me and eventually he managed to track me down through Ian Charleson and he said "I put you back in. “Mad” is back in. It's not going to be a problem. I've cut my fee. You are going to be in this movie" and it was all back on.

IAIN: And you got your £300. It doesn’t sound a lot . . .

TOYAH: I think I got £360 which immediately went on the band’s first PA -

IAIN: And you also say that as the film went on, you got more and more out of control. It's big-headed -

TOYAH: It’s big-headed. Derek allowed all the performers to do and be whatever they wanted to be within the space. So I just got more and more big-headed as my confidence grew. So on the very first scene we shot, it was a 10 page scene of just me talking about the history of mankind. And it was terrifying. I was given freedom of where to move and where to end up. So there were a few occasions where I just dried and Derek said "don't worry, we'll just pick up".

But also Ian Charleson and Carl Johnson were playing incestuous brothers, and they were in the scene and they were in a bed naked and I had to, at the end of this speech, jump into bed with them (above). And I was completely thrown by their nudity. I had never been next to a nude man so Derek said "is something wrong?" And I said "I’m just getting used to this, it's quite distracting" (Iain laughs) but I probably didn't say it that way, but it's probably like “fucking hell! They’re naked!”

So I was an exuberant person, loving every part of my life at this point. And probably believing people were genuinely interested in me and people found me fascinating. Well, realistically I was just a pain in the arse but Derek loved me and I loved Derek. He was super protective of me and we had a deep, deep bond.

IAIN: Again, you talk about that in the book and there was also a drama with Adam and The Ants – Adam was in the film and you in a band with his wife?

TOYAH: Yes, Adam needed to put a band together for a scene within “Jubilee” of a band that's being auditioned for record deal. So Adam put together myself, his wife, who I think was a secret wife at the time called Eve. And Eve and I would end up having a warehouse together called Mayhem in a few years following. But Adam put together this band. They were Stephanie, who became Adam’s choreographer. And there was Anne Marie on drums.

And Adam and I set about writing a song for this band that was called the Maneaters, and the song was called “Nine to Five”. The lyric got written when Adam and I were in Dingwalls probably seeing some band like the Damned, and I wrote a lyric down on a napkin, handed it to Adam and he made it into the song.

So that all went really well and the idea was the Maneaters would go out on tour and become a real band. But I think everyone in the band, all girl band and Adam just found me too much. I was just too loud, too dominant, too ambitious and when we were shooting in the … what is the name of a very famous gay club in Earl’s Court?

IAIN: There’s Heaven which is in Charing Cross  . . .

TOYAH: Well, anyway it was a small club and we were shooting in there and Adam just sacked me. And huge physical fight. Derek Jarman, standing in between us, Derek laughing his head off, finding it very funny -

IAIN: So it was a physical fight? You were trying to punch him?

TOYAH: Yeah, Adam never hit back. Never lifted a finger to me.

IAIN: Did you manage to get a real good one in this face or …?

TOYAH: I can't remember. I went to him but he never physically responded and Derek just stood between us and I had to just go and calm down -

IAIN: We’ll come to other stories later where you've got a bit feisty there. But this fight and you mentioned Mayhem. Mayhem sounds like a really interesting experiment because it was an old warehouse, wasn't it?

TOYAH: It was a British Rail warehouse -

IAIN: So you were living there and having parties there?

TOYAH: Yes, it's a kind of convoluted experience, but it was also incredibly important to the punk and New Wave movement. At the time I was living in a bedsit in Hornsey, which was very convenient for rehearsals for the Toyah band in Whetstone. And I had a call from a friend called Keith who had found this disused warehouse that was for rent £60 a week, a complete wreck. We weren't supposed to live there. It ran along the railway track at Queenstown (Road) railway station.

We rented it. We took it over. Eve moved in. John Herlihy, the music writer, moved in. There was me  - so just the four of us. We built rooms within this massive warehouse (Toyah in her room, below), and it had a huge rehearsal space, which meant that we could get bands in and earn a living hiring it out.

So within a short, very short space of time Steve Strange took it over for four days at a time for massive raves. Hazel O’Connor formulated the music for "Breaking Glass" there. Iggy Pop and John Cale formulated the “The Idiot” and “The Passenger” there. Just these incredible people just started turning up to use it -

IAIN: This is amazing again – you’re at the centre of something so special. Something so embryonic somehow.

TOYAH: I think I was part of the attraction, but the man called Keith and I can't remember surname - was the one that did the nitty gritty running of it and helped build it. But I think because I was there and I was ascending, I attracted people to come and use the space.

IAIN: Remarkable thing to do because as you say, I think you also had parties too, didn’t you?

TOYAH: It was just endless. There was no bathroom. There was one toilet. We washed in buckets. There's nowhere to cook. There was one window in this unbelievable football field size of a building. But I think it gave a subterranean existence to people who didn't want to be seen in the outside world, and I think that's why it worked so well, but it was very uncomfortable living -

IAIN: And was that you to some extent then, that you went ahead with this subterranean existence, do you think?

TOYAH: I think people just found us at that point, and it was like "hey! look at this place. We’ll give you money if we can use it". When Steve Strange used to take it over on a Friday night till a Monday I would see everyone in and say hello to everyone from Boy George right through to Spandau Ballet. The whole of that set.

I just disappeared to Birmingham and had a quiet weekend and came back Monday morning. No one knew I had gone. So for me, I wasn't really the type of animal that wanted to be in among hundreds of people. I wanted to be on the stage performing to hundreds of people. To be in the actual parties I found slightly uncomfortable.

IAIN: So you got so much going on in your life. Let's throw a couple of things on which are to do with your acting career. You got a part for a film called “The Corn Is Green” (below) and you formed a very special relationship with Katharine Hepburn in that. Tell us about that.

TOYAH: Well, I just finished at the National Theatre and I managed to get the most fabulous agent called Libby Glenn. American lady who then forgave me everything. She knew that I was a free spirit. You have to remember if I was hanging out with Albert Finney, I could match Albert Finney who was a wild wild performer.

And Libby got me seen by everyone, but she happened to get me into this audition with George Cukor, the Hollywood director. George Cukor and Katharine Hepburn had rented the flat in 73 Eaton Square and they were producing “The Corn Is Green” for Lorimar which is TV. It was “Dallas”. All of those people.

And I went along to the audition. Libby said to me “please do not turn up as a punk - look how you did at National Theatre”. So the National Theatre loaned the wig which was long brown hair. I was being seen for “Bessie Watty”, who starts in that film as 13 and ages up to 18, so that was not a problem. Very small stature that I have. I went along. George Cukor opened the door. No idea who he was, just this lovely American man who was elderly. Took me into a lounge where Katharine Hepburn was sitting on a sofa. Again, not quite sure who she was, but I really liked her immediately.

IAIN: So you weren’t quite sure who she was?

TOYAH: I kind of recognised her because you did get black and white films on a Saturday afternoon back then. I did a reading. I went away, got a call at midnight. I was told I got the role. Could I go back the next day and read the whole script with Katharine . . . So I didn't bother with the wig, I had already returned it to the National Theatre and George Cucor opened the door to me and he looked at my red hair and he said would I like to take my hat off and I said  "this is my hair, I’m a punk rocker". And he kind of looked cross and I realised it's probably Katharine who fought for me to be “Bessie Watty” rather than George.

When George Cukor took me into the lounge where Katharine was and he said "this girl's hair is bright red" Katharine defended me immediately and her response was (does an American accent) "I wish I could have done that when I was her age!" Because Katharine wore trousers at a time that in the 1930’s when women weren't allowed to do that. So she understood what it was to be judged based on appearance.

So the making of “The Corn Is Green” for me was probably the greatest experience as an actress I had up until that point because Cukor really was a hands-on director. He moulded me into how to work on camera. You found your light. You found your light on a certain word. You turned on a certain word. You suppressed your energy all the time because if you start low on camera you've got all that (gestures above her head) to explore. Energy wise - you can heighten your energy when you need too.

He was a fabulous director. He was also quite an aggressive director and I didn't learn until 20 years later that he was known as the director that shouts at women. So he would shout at me a lot, but Katharine would just go right back at him and say “don’t shout at that girl”. She was very protective.

IAIN: Yeah, it seems that she kind of wanted to protect you as the free spirit, and that I think is coming out as we go into your story more and more - that you had that spirit. You were wanting to be yourself somehow. You saw yourself and you are willing to compromise to a small degree but only to a small degree -

TOYAH: I think there is another element to it and this is an element I've only seen recently that basically I was a really trustworthy person. So even though I was anarchic and destructive to myself I was completely reliable. I knew if people needed help. I knew if people needed more energy. I knew if people needed me on time, they need me to do something. I was there for people. I was an empath. So I think what people picked up on was that reliability. I was never late, I knew my lines. I would carry things, I would fetch tea, food. I just knew what people needed.

IAIN: So this is your intuitive side?

TOYAH: I was intuitive and I think that's why people really protected me.

IAIN: But you also had the courage to follow your intuition, and not everyone does that -

TOYAH: OK. Yeah.

IAIN: That’s the important thing with courage is to follow it through. But anyway, and then there's “Quadrophenia”, which was a legendary film.

TOYAH: Legendary film – bloody legendary way of getting the job! I was on “Corn Is Green” and I heard about “Quadrophenia” casting. Franc Roddam - after I reached out to do an audition – Franc Roddam asked me to get Johnny Rotten through a film test, so I worked very briefly with Johnny Rotten to do two scenes with him. He was staggeringly good. He knew his lines, he turned up at the right time. We did the screen test at Shepperton (Studios). He took my breath away. That man is a natural actor. We did the screen test. I heard nothing again.

I actually turned up at Franc’s office, which is where we shot “Corn Is Green”, Lee Electrics in Wembley. I stood outside the window and I said "Franc, what's going on? Give me a job!" and he called me and he said Lydon (Johnny Rotten) was phenomenal, but no one would insure the film with him in it. I was auditioning for the main female part and Franc Roddam said "that's not for you, even though Roger Daltrey said you are the spitting image of his late sister".

And I said "OK, give me a job" and I just kept turning up at Lee Electrics knowing he hadn't cast the character of “Monkey”. And I’d stand outside his window just going "give me a job!" And eventually he called me in. He said "OK, if you can do the party scene with Phil Daniels - the job’s yours".

I think I beat him into submission but also he couldn't find that character. Well, what he didn't know is I'd already worked with Phil Daniels. You know - Phil (and me) brother and sister. We trust each other. The bond was there so I did the party scene with Phil and I got the part but I think it was really reluctant on Franc Roddam’s kind of side. He fought it all the way.

IAIN: On the other hand you were determined again -

TOYAH: Oh God, well, I still am. I am really and I am Miss Pushy. I've been turned down by the whole world. I've made contact with everyone in this world. “Oh God, it’s Toyah Willcox again!” “Hide!” (laughs)

IAIN: So to move onto your music career in terms of a record label, you did a showcase and you got offered a deal by Safari Records?

TOYAH: Yeah, but it wasn't that easy. Everyone in the world was signed except me. Everyone was signed and I was an unsigned artist. Yeah - I was opening at the Lyceum for Adam and The Ants, for Psychedelic Furs. For Dexy’s (Midnight Runners). I was unsigned, and here I was in this big upcoming movie with Sting, who was ascending into the stratosphere. And it was driving me mad and we've got a showcase with Safari and I was shooting riot sequences for “Quadrophenia” in Brighton (below) and had to go up to Waterloo.

Do the showcase at the lunchtime for Safari with Joe Bogen and the band and we got the contract there and then. Which meant I could go back to Brighton and say to Sting “I’ve been signed” and I've never seen anyone more happy for me than Sting on that day because he's a really, really generous soul. And that was it. That was the beginning of a relationship with Safari, but it took what felt like an eternity to get there

IAIN: And then they wanted you to do demos every month. They were kind of really disciplining you -

TOYAH: They were very disciplined and we were committed. We had a permanent rehearsal space in Vauxhall where we went daily and wrote and improvised. We would often form a song but not finish it. We would finish in front of an audience. So “IEYA”, which is off the second album “Blue Meaning” - we found a sequence we loved and we sound checked with it for about 10 sound checks for shows and then one day in Bath to a particularly riotous audience - where the police had to come and get us out the building - we did it as the encore and it went on for about 30 minutes.

I had ESP with Joe Bogen - we were just deeply, deeply linked creatively. And Joel, Pete Bush and the other members of the band – we would just look at each other and we’d look at the audience reaction and I'd say to Joel "we're going to repeat that bit again" and we would just work the bits in front of the audience that heightened their reactions. And that's how “IEYA” came to to be -

IAIN: Yes. But your first album “Sheep Farming In Barnet” - that came out. It did pretty well, didn’t it, to start with?

TOYAH: I think it did incredibly well. I think the first indie charts were existing. “Victims Of The Riddle” … I remember being -

IAIN: That was your first single, wasn’t it?

TOYAH: I think it was a four track EP?

IAIN: OK. “Four From Toyah” was it called …

TOYAH: I’m confused … It might have been a single – it might’ve been on -
(NB: "Victims Of The Riddle" was the first Toyah single, released in April 1979. The EP "Four From Toyah" was released in February 1981)

IAIN: Yeah because the indie charts started in January 1970 so -

TOYAH: (intrigued) Oh, did they?

IAIN: Is that right? No hang on, I got that wrong. That would be January 1980 I think -

TOYAH: Because I can remember in the first indie charts, which I thought was 79’, but you could be right - I was number one in the charts for 12 months. I never left the number one spot with “Victims Of The Riddle”. And then I got “Shoestring” and that set up “Sheep Farming In Barnet” -

IAIN: I remember “Shoestring”. It was a detective series, wasn't it?

TOYAH: With Trevor Eve -

IAIN: I used to really enjoy that -

TOYAH: Yeah and I got the part of “Tallulah” (NB: It’s “Toola”) who was being exploited by her manager who was Gary … He went on to do “Auf Wiedersehen Pet” Gary Oldman or Gary Holt? He had a band … I can’t remember, I haven’t got my research … (NB: The episode of “Shoestring” was called “Find The Lady” (Series 1 Episode 9) and Gary Holton plays “Gary Molecombe” aka "Mole", a bass player who is sacked from the band and Christopher Biggins plays “Mal Kenrick”, the band’s manager)

IAIN: Heavy Metal Kids (the name of Gary’s band)

TOYAH: Heavy Metal Kids!

IAIN: Yeah. You were balancing this career of being a musician -

TOYAH: With theatre and film -

IAIN: So how was that for you? Did you see them as one kind of career in a way because you loved all of them or were you prioritising some of them to some extent?

TOYAH: I was holding every ball in the air. I wanted it all and this is part of my personality and it's part of what trips me up is that my ambition and my drive is far larger than my intelligence and my talent.

IAIN: Your ambition and your drive is far larger -

TOYAH: Than my physical intelligence and my talent.

IAIN: Is that really true do you think?

TOYAH: I think so. Until someone can organise my dyspraxia I think I’ll permanently be frustrated. So I was holding all the balls in the air. I wanted it all. I wanted the Oscar. I wanted the Best Actress award. I wanted the Best Singer award. I wanted to be number one and I wanted play every stadium in the world. I wanted it all. I was a megalomaniac. Which probably pissed a lot of other artists off  . . .

IAIN: Yeah, again something I thought was interesting, you were very focused on your appearance and you would take amphetamines at night to lose weight and you’d go three days at a time without food or sleep which is  . . . incredible really  . . .

TOYAH: I don't like sleeping, I still don't.

IAIN: Yeah, I think I got it from one of your blogs that you only sleep three hours a night. Is that still the case?

TOYAH: I really resent giving that time up -

IAIN: So it’s not that you can’t sleep, it's like you think it's a waste of time?

TOYAH: I resent it, I hate it. I hate sleep. So anyway, getting back to where you're talking about … When I did “Jubilee” and “Quadrophenia” I was quite large and Safari were very keen – they never made me, this was my choice - they were very keen that I was a desirable front person. As was probably every record company and probably the one thing that stopped me being signed by everyone else was that I could really do with going on a diet. So I discovered “blues” (amphetamines), which I adored.

They made me very creative. They magnified my natural personality much to the distress of everyone around me. And I would just go days and days without eating and without sleeping. So I think after “Quadrophenia” - and I got pneumonia doing “Quadrophenia” because I was also shooting “Quartermass” (below) for 12 hours a day, and “Quadropehnia” for 12 hours a day so I had a two week period with no sleep and got pneumonia. I probably lost three stone immediately after that film which is all helped with amphetamines and I absolutely adored every minute of it (Iain chuckles) That's probably not the right thing to say, but it suited me.

IAIN: Well … if it works for you. We talked about this earlier. It’s like you also had this, if I can get the words, that you said you had a ballistic temper, you were hitting men for second nature, but that was obviously then and not now. Tell us about that time in the nightclub when you had 15 -

TOYAH: The mass brawl?

IAIN: I’m not trying to embarrass you but it’s quite interesting. 15 Martini’s and then knocked out John Craig, the head of Safari Records?

TOYAH: Probably one of the reasons I have never been beaten up (or) no one's ever managed to rape me in my life is because I just kick the shit out of anyone whoever tried. And people have tried. So growing up in Birmingham being small and also being very wary of men kind of being possessive and trapping you in relationships and accidentally getting pregnant, and I'm referring to virtually all my girlfriends in the Birmingham area at that time …

I just learned to stand alone and use my fists and it really did work. It protected me. So we are, just being signed to Safari in a nightclub, watching a band called Blood Donor. I don't think Squeeze were playing as well. They might have been playing as well, but Blood Donor had Keith Hale who wrote “It’s A Mystery”.

So we're watching this band and there was a balcony over the stage where a woman was lighting matches and throwing them into the hair of the musicians – my friends. I was with my then boyfriend Jem (below with Toyah) and his ex girlfriend was in the crowd and I was really jealous of that and I had 15 Babyshams and probably 3 "blues" and I went for the girl throwing the matches into the audience.

And it started a mass brawl. Kate Bush was there as well. And as I went for the girl up on the gantry and I was pulled away, I saw Kate Bush’s security just lift her up and carry her over the crowd and out of the building (laughs) as tables flew, chairs flew and it was a mass brawl and I was going to get that girl because she was setting their hair on fire.

I am unstoppable. I had to learn this from this experience to stop this - to just turn the switch off. Because, unless you knock me out, I am unstoppable. Very, very strong. Keith Hale tried to stop me. I broke his rib. Gave him two black eyes. Woke up next to Jem the next morning - two black eyes. I broke John Craig's ribs. Two black eyes. And this fight spilled out into the street and all I can remember about this night as the police cars arrived … It was like a scene from “Carrie” and I’m standing in the road stopping the traffic in my bra and pants covered in blood, threatening to kill everybody.

Ended up in court. And funny enough the person that got prosecuted was the boyfriend of the girl who was setting people's hair on fire. Because it was him and me fighting to the death. And he was the one that got prosecuted because he did more damage than I did.

IAIN: And probably if people hadn't intervened you would’ve killed him – (laughs)

TOYAH: I would’ve killed him -

IAIN: I'm just looking at my notes here to see where to pick it up from there -

TOYAH: And by the way, I've had to do this to protect Robert, I’ve had to do it.

IAIN: That’s a story to tell, I don’t know about that -

TOYAH: Well, Robert won’t sign autographs and when he was guesting in my band The Humans seven years ago we came out the Scala in King's Cross and this 6’2” Russian man with a whole pile of King Crimson albums turns up and says “sign Robert, sign!” and Robert ran off and this man followed him. And Robert said “no, no autographs!” so this guy said “I will kill you if you don't sign these” so I stood between Robert and this man and said “you’ve got to fucking kill me first!” And this man looked at me and I just gave him the death look. I'm just not afraid. And I stood there -

IAIN: When you say “the death look”? Is it a real look?

TOYAH: It’s like you’re going to have to knock me out to get past me -

IAIN: Could you give me death look now?

TOYAH: I don’t know where it comes from. Wel, it's like you're going to have to knock me out to get them. I don't know where it comes from. It lives deep in there (points at her chest) And I said "I will fucking kill you if you set one hand on my husband". And I turned round and my husband's running down the street with the rest of the band, leaving me there and eventually this Russian guy said “I’m so sorry Mrs Fripp. I'm sorry I've upset you”. And I (was like) “fuck off”! You just have to stand your ground. But I haven't done that in a long time. But I do have to protect him (points to the next room)

IAIN: Well, we’re coming into that relationship with Robert later. But that’s a lovely little story. As I said in the beginning of the interview, I don't wanna focus too much detail on the various albums but let's just – without going into too much detail - what intrigued me with your love life -

TOYAH: Not too much detail! (bursts out laughing)

IAIN: You’ve basically had three long term relationships and you went from one to the other pretty quickly?

TOYAH: I’ve never been single since I was 20.

IAIN: Yeah, so what is it about that for you? Because you were in a relationship with Jem and then you met Tom (behind Toyah, below), who was the security guy and then you went straight to be with Tom and left Jem and then when you met Robert, you went straight to him from Tom. So what is it about you and men? I'm not asking for intimate details at all, but I'm interested in the dynamics. Your thought process on that?

TOYAH: I think they’re all protectors.

IAIN: So they protect you? And you feel you need a protector?

TOYAH: Jem was a wonderful relationship. Were still friends. Adorable, creative, gentle man who inherited this fucking crazy girlfriend and I think he really really loved me, but I was a handful. He'd have to talk me off rooftops. He’d often find me on the Mayhem rooftop just screaming at the sky, or talking to the stars. Just aaargghh! I was just ramped the whole time and he was a fabulous fabulous human being. Tom was sexual attraction and that was a really aggressive relationship. We shouldn't have been together. It was not a terribly happy 5 years -

IAIN: Because he was very controlling, wasn’t he?

TOYAH: Well, we were both completely physically strong and aggressive so it wasn’t great … We were probably better off as friends than as partners. And Robert came along at a time where I just had to get out of this relationship and I couldn't see a way out and Robert made it possible.

IAIN: We’ll come into the situation with Robert because that is obviously … well, it’s intriguing. I’m just seeing there … my wife has just very kindly put the books (leans over to the table) I forgot to bring to start with. By the way this is Toyah’s autobiography (shows the book) which I really – I’ve read twice now -

TOYAH: Have you?!

IAIN: Yes, genuinely.

TOYAH: Are you a fast reader or something?

IAIN: No, I bought it originally when you played at the Hexagon in Reading, last time I saw you play, so I bought it then and then I read it before this interview so I could ask you some questions of course . . .

TOYAH: OK.

IAIN: But the other one that I really liked was by Chris Limb (below with Toyah). Very sweet book. “I Was A Teenage Fan”. And what I liked about it particularly was kind of innocence from him but the way you, at that time, built this genuine relationship with your fans. You wanted them somehow to be more than just fans. Not necessary as close friends, but you wanted to show that you appreciated them as fans.

TOYAH: A lot of my fans were exactly like me. They felt dispossessed, they couldn't find a place of belonging. Some desperately just wanted to come out and couldn't at that time. Couldn’t come out to their parents or publicly. I think I attracted people that not only liked the music and found me attractive, but also people but just needed to be seen and acknowledged. And they were with us.

Safari were really great at running the fan club. I believe the first secretary was Sadie Frost and her mum and then Chris Limb took it over. So the idea was that it was a community and they weren't ignored. I wrote about … one time, the late 1981 … I was signing my signature 10 000 (times) a week. I mean, I was literally just doing this (makes a signing motion) -

IAIN: Chris is saying in this book you were writing him letters?

TOYAH: Yeah

IAIN: Real letters? Hand written?

TOYAH: Yeah. Well, the thing was - a lot of my fans and you find this with people with great IQ’s - they don't fit in but they've really fabulous at communicating and Chris is now an author. A published author and he was genuinely interesting. And I could form ideas with him about how to run the fan club and a lot of the people I corresponded with were people who are genuinely interesting, who you could see had a future somewhere. They needed direction into that future. So I suppose I was like an agony aunt to some of them -

IAIN: But you spent time chatting with them, which meant a lot. Reading Chris’ book I could see what that meant to them. Many artists never did that -

TOYAH: Well, I mean, my God, it took up a lot of my life. When I did “Trafford Tanzi” in 83’, there was 300 kids camping outside theatre. It would take me 2 hours to get into the theatre because I didn't want to create a hierarchy of those at the front that I talked to and those at the back who got ignored. Very rarely did we not acknowledge someone. Very rarely.

IAIN: Yeah. It's a great quality and he’s also saying in the book at one point and I would have thought this made you a bit sad that you got to the point that you couldn't travel on public transport anymore. You couldn't spend so much time with the fans. It was after “It’s A Mystery”. It’s a huge song. I want to ask you briefly about “It’s A Mystery” because that interests me because originally, when Keith Hale wrote this song that it was apparently 38 minutes long and you had to really work on it to bring it down to a four minute song?

TOYAH: We had to format it. So it had a 12 minute vocal and then an incredibly long instrumental. And I think John Craig recognised its single potential. I was slightly against it because it was very feminine and I consider myself third gender. Especially then - I wanted to not be gender specific. I wanted to be third gender. I felt it was feminine, it was vulnerable. It was everything I didn't want to show about myself. But as a compromise, because Tony Edwards and John Craig were friends, they were family …

So it was Christmas 1980. Keith Hale set about creating the ABC format of a single which is intro, verse, bridge, chorus, middle eight. It had to become no more than 4 minutes to get radio play, so that was a conscious formatting. I wrote the second verse because I wanted to have a contribution on it. And we did the demo and immediately everyone said “yes, we will work with that” and getting radio play is a political act.

So the pluggers said they were happy with it. The record shops said they were happy with it, so it ran as a single on “Four From Toyah”, which is listed in all of the kind of archiving hitlists as “Four From Toyah”. Not “It’s A Mystery” which by the way, can we alter that, because boy, will I go up on the billing at festivals if “It’s A Mystery” is listed in all those listings. It’s not. It’s only “Four From Toyah”. We've been trying to rectify that for 20 years.

IAIN: It’s not our job is it?

TOYAH: Well, I can’t do it. I don't know how to do it.

IAIN: OK, I’m sure we can help with that -

TOYAH: Talk to Matt about it. Anyway …

IAIN: And of course with “Mystery” and “I Want To Free” you did go up to sort of mega fame.

TOYAH: Yeah, and to a younger audience. As a punk artist I was bridging the audiences of The Damned, Psychedelic Furs, Adam Ant. They tolerated my kind of bright coloured show business. But I think once “It’s A Mystery” broke, I had a much younger audience.

IAIN: Yeah. So what is your process, generally, writing songs? How does it work for you?

TOYAH: Most time the lyric comes first, so I carry a notepad with me and they just fly into my head. Ideas fly in and I just write it down. Then there's a stage where I kind of develop it more, sequence the words into verse, bridge, chorus, which is always helpful for the musicians.

Sometimes music comes first. There's a song that I've just completed for my next album called “The Bride” ("The Bride Will Return") where I was able to just sit down and play to Simon Darlow. “This is an idea I've had” and I sang him the verse and then we develop the rest of it. But there is no formula. All I do is just listen, I listen to myself. I listen to the silence. Silence is very informative -

IAIN: So what do you mean by listen to the silence?

TOYAH: I only ever listen to other music when I need to unlock, if I’m kind of stuck in a thought process. If I listen to Peter Gabriel I could write 450 words. There's something about his work that informs me as a writer. But normally - probably what people do is meditation. I just sit in silence and it's quite eventful. Things come in.

IAIN: I'm going to jump around a bit cause there's so much to cover and obviously time is finite with this situation so I liked when you talked in the book about your relationship with Laurence Olivier when you made the “Ebony Tower” film (below) because you were very different. You're the free spirit. He's the very traditional sexist man, but you got on really well with him, didn’t you?

TOYAH: I still think he was a free spirit. It’s what I adored about him. He was coming to the end of his life, he had stomach cancer. He can't have felt well. There was Greta Scacchi, Roger Rees, myself and Laurence Olivier. We were stationed in Dordogne in France. We flew in a private jet which was one hell of an experience. All four of us drinking many bottles of champagne on the plane but it didn't have a loo. I remember landing and all of us running past security going “we’re going to the toilet!” We will be back!”

I think because I'm a trained actress and have been to drama school, I know disciplines and I play those rules and those rules are of be silent and listen. Know your peers, respect them, be on time and know your lines. So I'm old school like Laurence Olivier was.

But also I really enjoyed listening to him and a pattern emerged where I was the one that was alone in the Dordogne without other partners being there so I was available to have supper with him and I was very happy to do it and to hear his life story. It was really such a gift.

IAIN: Yeah, I can imagine. And then record company wise it came to an end with Safari?

TOYAH: I think that was 84’. Yeah.

IAIN: So I'm jumping around a little bit here in sequence but came to the end with Safari, decided to go with CBS.

TOYAH: Yeah I’d already changed management at this point. I’d been with a certain management company since 82’ and it was pretty evident - I think Joel wanted to move on to produce other work. Be free of me I would have thought so I became a proper solo artist and I was signed to the Portrait label at CBS

IAIN: Which mainly had quite big female singers, didn't it?

TOYAH: Maurice Oberstein (the chairman of CBS Records UK) wanted to sign the biggest female singers in the world. So he signed Alison Moyet, myself, he was going after Pat Benatar, he wanted Blondie. That is what Portrait was going to be, the biggest female singers.

IAIN: And it didn't really work out that well, did it?

TOYAH: I think they had huge distribution problems. We had very strange sales figures. In Israel the album sold hundreds of thousands -

IAIN: So which album was that?

TOYAH: Oh, sorry! This was “Minx”. And yet everywhere else people couldn't get their hands on it, so it was a really interesting experience.

IAIN: But how was it to be with the sort of major international company compared to Safari? Because I knew the people at Safari, they were very personal and you could always get hold of them and so many artists have that experience - they leave an independent, they go to a bigger company. The potential for more success is obviously there with a bigger company, but there's something missing in terms of their commitments . . .

TOYAH: Well, that’s exactly it. That’s what my management wanted. I just suddenly became the girl that sang. It was radically different. I made “Minx” with Christopher Neil producing, and he was fabulous, but I was very much being honed into a world quality singer. So I was having singing lessons, dance lessons (above, practising the choreography for the video for "Soul Passing Through Soul", 1985) It was the next step up. I don't think I met the bar when it came to that kind of physical attractiveness that is absolutely required from an international female singer.

But in all, I think the “Minx” as calling me a musician and a writer was a very good album and Christopher Neil did a great job. But it not only was a step away from the interactiveness of me and my fans, it was a step away from the music I was known for and also into a different world. I was quite happy in it because the photo shoots were with Terence Donovan. The video shoots were with Terence Donovan. We did remarkably beautiful visual work. The songs - I like most of them on “Minx”. I think they would’ve been great to tour but no one would let me tour that album. So it it became quite frustrating.

IAIN: Yeah, I can imagine. So then you had another big change in your life and you went to a charity awards event and there was a man in a taxi. You didn't know who he was and you hadn’t met before. He was with the same management company. You got chatting and … talk us through what happened?

TOYAH: Well, I was on the back seat and Robert Fripp was on the front seat and I just found him very quiet and contained, which immediately brought the provocateur out of me. Back then I was a big teaser. I would tease people if they were different. And I was just teasing him all the way from the Kings Road to the Intercontinental (hotel), Hyde Park. He was good natured about it. What I didn't know was he decided I was his wife at that point.

IAIN: Hang on, hang on. So he got the taxi and you got the taxi and he's already decided that you're going to be his wife?

TOYAH: In that moment he had a future vision.

IAIN: That’s quite extraordinary . . .  isn’t it?

TOYAH: He does do that. He did this with Bowie when Bowie went into the studio and did - is it “The Last Day”?

IAIN: “The Last Day” album, yes -

TOYAH: Robert dreamt about that happening and wrote in his diary and got a very, very strong reply from Tony Visconti saying “how dare you tell the world we're making this album” and Robert said “I didn't know, it was a dream” so you know Robert has those kind of intuitions. So Robert kind of went away. He was living in New York and started telling people he met his wife.

IAIN: And you didn't know about this?

TOYAH: No. And I think he talked to the management company who said that, you know, I was in a particularly complex relationship and Robert invited me to make a narrative album ("The Lady or The Tiger", 1986) for charity in America. And we took a week to make that. We also wrote some new material together and at the end of that week he said “you know you’re my wife. Will you marry me?” And he set about making it possible for me to just separate, get out of the country -

IAIN: Yeah but hang on. That’s a big step to take … what he said to you. How did you feel about that at the time?

TOYAH: I thought he was quite eccentric and very unique. We were very compatible. We got on incredibly well creatively in this week. And it was kind of a bit overwhelming, but I was in a very overwhelming place at that time. And my whole life just changed very very quickly from that point on -

IAIN: But again it takes courage … what you did . . .

TOYAH: If I didn't do it  . . . I couldn't see any future.

IAIN: Is that right? It was that restrictive, your previous relationship? So you didn't get married straight away, but you went to America and Robert was living in a community run by JG Bennett, who was a follower of Gurdjieff (a Russian philosopher, mystic, spiritual teacher and composer) -

TOYAH: The Bennet community was run by his surviving children. And his wife Elizabeth.

IAIN: So Bennet wasn't there at the time?

TOYAH: No, Bennet had already passed away

IAIN: That’s a kind of rigid community. How was that when you got there?

TOYAH: I was dealing with an awful lot on many many levels. I had to make a clean break and there was a lot going on back in the UK that I had to deal with from America. But I was in a kind of anonymous space to do it in. I could work it all out from where I was with a lot of people helping back home.

It was not a great time in my life. It wasn't fabulously romantic or anything like that. It was a very practical time. And I was there for three months, which allowed me to work out how to approach the future and what to do and how to get back to England and function in England again. Robert gave me a safehouse.

IAIN: A quote from the book, you learned to use your inner voice constructively because you were getting messages (to give) for other people?

TOYAH: I think up until that point I was brought up being told I always wrong. So if I had an instinct, a really strong instinct … my parents, my friends, my teachers would say “Oh no, that's not right”. So everything that was natural to me I was was subdued by someone else. So during this period at Claymont I was able to just go “I have to be true to myself. I have to use my instincts. I have to listen to those. Because I've just been in nothing but shit for not being myself”. It was a really very good period for just tuning up and tuning up into who and what I wanted to be and what I needed to deal with creatively, like my weaknesses.
 
I’m not a musician … considering what I've done career wise and I can't physically play an instrument but I can hear music up there (taps her head) ... it’s remarkable and interesting and I've had to kind of make up in other areas. I have to really be able to communicate to get ideas over so that period of time was very transitional. 

IAIN: Yes, it obviously was. And you felt inner changes going on at that time?

TOYAH: Well, probably everything was always the same, I just was listening to myself.

IAIN: So you were being more aware of what was happening inside and outside?

TOYAH: Definitely. Accepting that I am a very spiritual person and allowing myself to be so rather than … You know when you’re in the company of atheists and they beat you and they beat you to try and submit to have no belief. That period for me was like well, fuck off. I know what I know. I know what I hear. I know what I see. Stop trying to just dissuade me or tell me that is not real. It gave me a lot of strength that period. Does that make sense?

IAIN: Yeah, obviously. I also get the feeling that Robert gave you the space to look deep into yourself?

TOYAH: Robert could un-knot and I call it un-knotting because there were quite a few people in my life who actively damaged me all the way through their lives and they actively contradicted everything I'd say. They'd throw a contradiction back, which made me feel mad and very confused.

And my husband could see the truth of the situation so he would sit me down and talk me through it. And this is probably why I was so aggressive. I was brought up this way, to be told what came out of my mouth hadn't come out of my mouth. People would lie in my face saying "what you're feeling is not you". I'd say something and they’d go “you don't want that. Why did you say that?”

So Robert sat me down and explained what he saw which again verified the truth of who I was and it really helped me be true to myself and stand up for myself in a non aggressive way. So for instance with my mother, who threw contradiction back at me every day of her living life and my life. “I'm feeling happy.” “No, you're not. You should be sad.” Or “mum, I just won Best Female Singer” (below, at the British Rock and Pop Awards, 1982) - “don't boast about, it won't happen again”

IAIN: Did she really say that to you?!

TOYAH: “I've got this beautiful award” – “well, don’t fall on it, it will kill you”. So no wonder I went around hitting people for quite a long time. And Robert - I really say he saved my life because if we hadn't have moved to America and hadn't gone through that process, I think the only option was suicide.

IAIN: Wow!

TOYAH: Because every human being should be able to trust their mother and she just made me so mad. I mean, I will buy her gifts - when she died and we went to clear out the cottage - which I bought her - every gift I bought was there, untouched, unwrapped. Just piled up to the ceiling.

So I don't know what her problem was, but everything I said she would throw a negative back and it made me completely crazy. If I was eating food. “Hmm. That's gonna make you fat, isn’t it?” And she cooked it and put it in front of me. If I bought myself a present “Oh well, you're going to be bankrupt next year, aren't you?”

She never said, and I mean this - never said “I love you”. Never helped me and never said one positive. So when I met Robert and he took me away to Claymont, that was the fuck-up he was dealing with and he was superb. And that I think helped, even though it's not been easy living with him because he’s seen as an artist and I’m just "the wife" but he made it possible for me to really trust who and what I am and have clarity. He’s the first person who ever did that for me.

IAIN: So what you also mention in the book, which is quite fascinating, is that here you are, you are known as Toyah and then you are known more as Mrs. Fripp -

TOYAH: Overnight -

IAIN: Because he is this kind of legendary guitarist, King Crimson. Really looked up to. And so people would almost talk across you.

TOYAH: They’d ignore me completely.

IAIN: They’d ignore you completely? Really?

TOYAH: He had so many women he was sleeping with. He says they weren’t girlfriends but you know, he just seemed to be sleeping with every female he met. For the first two years of our relationship every hour the phone was ringing with a different woman, expecting to come over for sex.

IAIN: Really?

TOYAH: Oh God yeah, an I had to explain to him “no, you're not. I will not be in your life if you think this is natural behaviour.” And I think he was brought up to always be told he was right, and that even if he was wrong he was right.

IAIN: Opposite to you -

TOYAH: Complete opposite to me and every time we sat down with friends or to a meal, it was him holding court. That's what he created. So I just immediately became invisible. The fact that I've been nominated as the Best Actress, had won best Female Singer Awards, had platinum albums. I mean gone. Gone. Even bank managers wouldn't talk to me about my bank account even though I own property. They would only talk to Robert about my property which was extraordinary.

IAIN: Well, I don't want to say but it is extraordinary, yeah. I want to talk to you about this. You had a fax - the good old days of faxes - from someone called Phyllis Robert. And she was an American psychic ... she picked - didn't even know you or Robert, but she picked up on something.

TOYAH: She picked up that I was going into bowel cancer. She contacted Sting and said to Sting “do you know this person?” Sting said "yes" -

IAIN: She picked it up through intuition, through her psychic ability?

TOYAH: Phyllis was brought up in Tibet. When she was five years old, she was put through a Tibetan initiation ceremony where you're buried underground for five days. If you survive, you would then be taught -

IAIN: So you’re underground with earth on top for five days?

TOYAH: Yeah -

IAIN: There must be some air coming in?

TOYAH: Well, yeah, and if you survive that, you're then taught the deepest part of the Tibetan philosophies. So Phyllis is very, very special. She’s still alive. She contacted Sting because she'd been working with Sting and she said "I need to get hold of this person, Toyah. Do you know her?"

Sting lived 7 miles away from us. Gave Phyllis the fax number and this fax came and it just said “you have to get Toyah to me within a week”. And Robert took it very seriously. Contacted Phyllis, flew me out to New York. I sat with Phyllis for three days, three nights … very very extreme experience. I had an internal blockage which was going to kill me and I was ill. She just dealt with it.

IAIN: How was that for you though? Gosh!

TOYAH: It was a magical experience. And the fact that she saw me and she kind of understood the dynamics of my life and the changes I've gone through. She was able to explain to me how to deal with it.

IAIN: And something else again I found so interesting was you did a tour of prisons? (Toyah at Craiginches Prison in Aberdeen, 1991, below) You performed a show about Janice Joplin's life and you realise then, which we all should realise, that when you're in prison, it's like you realise how lucky you are -

TOYAH: To have liberty. Yeah. The astonishing thing in the prisons, and I did virtually every prison in the UK, including Northern Ireland, is that you meet people like you and I. The majority are normal people. I did go into the psychiatric units and of course there you meet people who hear voices and see spirits. And of course that's quite affecting when you've had my background.

So I was put into the psychiatric units to go and talk to some of the suicidal people and I was quite happy to do that and I was able to sit down and talk about my experiences in relation to theirs, which had been diagnosed as schizophrenia. I’ve never ever been diagnosed as schizophrenic but obviously I pick up people who have lived and have experiences proven on film to show that.

So to go into the prisons and do the show about Janis Joplin, which was a show about heroin addiction. That was a privilege and everywhere I went prisoners were slipping me notes saying “it's not like this normally, they're only being nice to us because you're here” (laughs) It was extraordinary.

But the really disturbing prisons were the female prisons because there was a lot of women there who did need care and attention on a psychiatric level and the money isn't always there for that. I went into padded cells with women. And that shocked me and to just sit down and calmly sit with a woman whose forehead was covered in calluses from banging her head against walls and say “I see you, I hear you. This is what it is. People like us have to learn to fit in, and if we can't fit in, we learn to create a character that acts as if they fit in.” These are powerful moments because you know you're about to change someone's life.

IAIN: The last words in your book are “the greatest currency anyone can offer is their life experience” and of course you’ve had an amazing life experience. For me that’s also very true. You’re 62 now. How do you feel about you life at the moment?

TOYAH: I’m permanently frustrated

IAIN: Really?

TOYAH: I’m frustrated as an artist. Frustrated as someone constantly trying to find happiness and calm. I probably have natural anxiety but I’ve never really found “calm”. We were talking about Hazel O’Connor when we first met and how she's really a very happy, gregarious soul, and I'm working with her and just admire her that she knows what happiness is.

Partly (because) I had a mother who, whenever I was happy, told me I was going to die, but I've never been allowed to maintain happiness. So you ask me how I feel about my life … I would just like to feel calm, happiness and security. I would like to. Then I'd like to feel that my career is secure because I love working. I love being out there.

IAIN: Well career wise, you have this wonderful new series with Robert, “Sunday Lunch with Toyah and Robert” which is so much fun and anyone that hasn't seen that should find it on YouTube because you do these different sketches. It must be real fun to do that, isn't it?

TOYAH: Well, the whole idea was in lockdown to get Robert engaging with the outside world because he was disappearing into a room and Robert can happily just stay in a room 24 hours a day. So I needed to get him moving and I needed to get him to express himself. So we started doing this and immediately we’re getting viewing from Australia, Manila, Philippines. I mean it was around the world! It was immediate.

So we kept doing it and now we enjoy it. Now we understand it. Now we see it as actually quite an important thing for us to do, so it's challenging coming up with new ideas. But it's us saying we need to remember the happy part of ourselves. Everyone is in this together. This is the great leveller, but we are in this together. We are equal in this. So it's important.

IAIN: Yeah but it's worth it. I think it’s wonderful, I love watching them. I'm going to sort of finish here just to get your feeling about this. This is something you said Christmas 2013, I found (this) on your website. “Life is about living your dreams. Standing strong in the belief you deserve to achieve your dreams and not giving into obstacles no matter your age. Life is for living and it is never too late to start.”

TOYAH: Totally! When I went to school all my teachers were widows from World War II. And their lives had stopped. They stopped allowing themselves to have good dreams and good hopes and good visualisation. Now when I meet people who've just given everything to keeping a family at school, keeping the mortgage paid but they haven't touched on their dreams and ambitions, it is never too late to start these dreams and ambitions and bringing them into your life and into the world. It's never too late. No matter what your age.

IAIN: Yes and now practically you're working on Toyah and The Humans aren't you? There’s a whole new -

TOYAH: Toyah and The Humans is at the moment a complete package (The Humans box set "Noise In Your Head" (2020). I'm doing the next solo album, which is “Posh Pop” -

IAIN: So that’s a solo album of yours?

TOYAH: Yeah, it’s a Toyah album

IAIN: So you're keeping going with the music, obviously. Is the more theatre work as well?

TOYAH: Not until we have a vaccine. I've got two movies waiting for release. “To Be Someone” and “Give Them Wings”. I think until we know what's going on with audiences it's quite hard to say what's happening. Every gig this year is moved 12 months forward. So I need to be touring with Hazel O'Connor, (in) May and June. Got two movies coming out and I'm hoping by April I'll be able to be an actress again and be back in movies. But while we have social distancing the life as a live performer is quite restricted

IAIN: Of course. Just talking to Robert earlier, he loves being in lockdown but you're not so keen -

TOYAH: He’s having a wonderful time. He’s seeing summer in UK for first time in 50 years. So he's having a good time. I'm very creative in this period, very creative, but I would like to get out there and earn a living. That's the hardest thing for me, is not earning a living. But we're in a good place. We live in a beautiful town. We hav a beautiful home and a good relationship.

IAIN: I can tell that. It's wonderful talking and so many things I would like to have covered as well, the projects you have musically with Robert, so many different things, but it is what it is and time is finite as we said, we need to finish. So thank you Toyah.

TOYAH: Thank you. It's good to meet you!

IAIN: And thank you for watching Cherry TV, and I hope we see you again soon. Goodbye.