TOYAH ON
ITV THIS MORNING
WITH RICHARD AND JUDY
SEPTEMBER 1992

RICHARD MADELEY: She's continued to pack a punch both on stage and on screen, and now she says she's mellowed and matured, and I know she has. Welcome, Toyah

TOYAH: (laughs) I'm not mellow or mature. That's a wrong accusation!

RICHARD: Aren't you? Oh, good! Say something shocking (Toyah laughs) No, we'll move on to that in a minute, but let's talk about this play you're in. It's interesting when you reach a point of style and an influence, like you have in your career, you can actually do things that you want to do. And it was about five years ago you read this Doris Lessing book -

TOYAH: Yes, “Memoirs Of A Survivor”

RICHARD: And you thought "I want to do that as a play" and now you are

TOYAH: Yeah. It's taken a long time, though. I was looking for a project for a one-woman show, and this was the first ever Doris Lessing I wrote -

RICHARD: Read, dear. Read.

TOYAH: Oh! (pretends to shoot herself in the head)

JUDY FINNIGAN: Megalomania!

TOYAH: Sorry, Doris! (they laugh) I thought she just gave women such an incredible spiritual identity and voice. I met Richard Osborne, who's the adapter, and we went along to Doris Lessing and her agent said, “why do you want to do this?” and I said "because she gives women great spiritual identity"

Doris Lessing went “what a load of rubbish! No, that's not what this book's about at all.” But it's now a two-hander. It's not a one-woman show. There's another actress with me called Joan McInnis, and it's an incredible story


JUDY: But very hard to do I would have thought, because Doris Lessing started off being very well known for her novels about her childhood in South Africa. They have become more and more science fiction based, fantasy based. It is quite a mystical novel. It's very hard to put on stage

TOYAH: (It's) terribly metaphoric. The story starts with a woman looking out of her window, watching the world fall apart. Basically, there's a holocaust going on -

RICHARD: Collapse of society as we know it -

TOYAH: Collapse of society. Children aren't being educated. They're living in the underground system, murdering each other, cannibalising each other, and especially cannibalising the older people. And this woman, in her desperation to find out what's going on with life, has a fantasy world

Basically, she walks through the wall into a utopian world and sees life how it really can be. She sees why she is the woman today, because of who her parents were and how she was treated. So you've got all these multi-layered stories going on

JUDY: That's at Salisbury Playhouse. I know it's going well and good luck with it. But in terms of the woman you are today, you were in Anthony Clare's program a while ago, revealing all about your own childhood. At some point you had a terribly difficult relationship with your mother, didn't you?

(Read the transcript of "In The Psychiatrist's Chair" (BBC Radio 4) HERE and listen to it HERE)

TOYAH: Yes, but I think it's a very common difficulty. My mother won't quite talk to me about it still. Sorry, mum

JUDY: I don't blame her

TOYAH: My father says that they thought I was a delightful child. They seem to have forgotten the fact that I invited 60 Hells Angels round for tea when they asked where I kept disappearing to at the weekends and stuff like that. I just didn't enjoy the institution of school, and really just wanted to be out in the big wide world at a very early age

RICHARD: Was there a gentle transition then (Toyah snorts) from that interesting adolescence to what you are now? Or did it just go quickly to you wake up one morning and think “oh, enough of that. I think I'll be sort of normal like everybody else”


TOYAH: No, it takes a long time. Whatever happens in your childhood scars you in some way. My childhood was no different from any other adolescent's childhood

RICHARD: What were the big scars for you then?

TOYAH: Mainly school. I just couldn't stand school. I couldn't make anyone understand how I loathed being at school

RICHARD: Why? What was wrong with it?

TOYAH: I just felt as if no one recognised my true ability. I was definitely born to be an actress and performer, and school does not cater for that. I should have been in a stage school. I just found everything really frustrating

Stuff maths! Stuff reading! I just wasn't interested. I was a very pig-headed person and just misbehaved. I did everything I could possibly do to disrupt the order of what was going on

JUDY: Did you sort of take that out on your parents very much? The story of your mother turning up at the school play to cheer you on and smile, and then you really went for her afterwards

TOYAH: Well, it was terrible. I'm not proud of that

RICHARD: Of course not

TOYAH: My mother was desperate to try and understand me, and I was desperate that she couldn't. I really was. I just didn't want any form of love and affection

RICHARD: Do you think if you hadn't gone to an ordinary school, if you had, as you say, gone to a stage school, you would have been different? You would have actually gotten on better with your parents and on better with the world in general?

TOYAH: Who knows ...

JUDY: Most people think stage schools are a bit of a … not an abomination exactly, but I think most parents - and you haven't got any children of your own yet - but I would hate the idea of sending my child to a stage school. I would feel it somehow was encouraging them to -

TOYAH: I think my parents were trying to protect me

JUDY: From doing it?

TOYAH: Yes. I went to the best school in Birmingham. A public school, all girls school for ladies (laughs)


JUDY: So you should have turned out (to be) a lady (laughs)

TOYAH: I should've turned out wonderful!

JUDY: Something went wrong

RICHARD: Why did you go on the Anthony Clare program? He really gets under the skin

TOYAH: I was intrigued

RICHARD: To see if you could beat him? To see if you could hold your own?

TOYAH: I tried. You can't beat that guy. He's just too astute. If you try and put a veil over something, he just keeps going at it. I was absolutely intrigued and I like challenges

RICHARD: Are you glad you did it? Because you did reveal a lot about yourself

TOYAH: I'm indifferent. I'm a public figure, and I'm indifferent about exposing myself

JUDY: That's interesting, because our phone-in today is all about the privacy and the press

TOYAH: But you see because I open my mouth so readily, the press don't bother me. I'm not trying to hide anything, so I don't get them hiding in my garden

JUDY: But you do genuinely feel you are public property? That anything they say about you - providing it's true in your life - is fair game? There's nothing you want to keep hidden?

TOYAH: There's a big difference about Anthony Clare. That's a very intelligent approach to the media. I have this thing about privacy at home. I don't like fans turning up, like we had a few girls in my garden last week

I was really offended by that. There are boundaries. But if something has an intelligent approach, I don't mind. But if it's just ... bimbo time, I'm not interested at all

RICHARD: No, but you'd still take that as part of the course. I mean, as you say you're a public -

TOYAH: You have to accept it. If you're in the firing line, you're going to get shot. It's as simple as that


JUDY: Well, that's a useful insight into our phone-in. I hope this isn't impertinent, but you did at one stage say you didn't want to have any children and in fact you were sterilised?

TOYAH: After an illness - but that is reversible

JUDY: Right. And are you in the process of changing your mind now, would you actually -

TOYAH: I don't know. I don't believe in closing doors. I think to say "no" closes your whole future. So I keep everything open. To me, the idea of a perfect family is a child of your own and the rest (are) adopted

I really believe in a world where there's so many children out there without parents, and I'm wealthy - I wouldn't close the door on adoption at all

RICHARD: But are you driven a little bit by the body clock ticking?

TOYAH: Oh, the body clock is a really evil thing but it's just a trickster, isn't it?

JUDY: Yeah, the hormones. It would be interesting to see what kind of school you sent your kids to - if and when you do have them

TOYAH: I wouldn't. I'd be a complete anarchist (they all laugh)

JUDY: You'd know how to handle them. Thank you very much. Good luck with “Memoirs Of The Survivor”. Sounds fascinating

TOYAH: Thank you 

JUDY: Thanks very much indeed, Toyah. See you again sometime

Watch the interview HERE
Thanks to toyah.net