TOYAH ON
ITV THIS MORNING
WITH RICHARD AND JUDY
APRIL 1994

A clip from “The Ink Thief” plays

RICHRAD MADELEY: (Toyah howls like a dog in the video) You're a bit carried away there

TOYAH: Sorry!

JUDY FINNIGAN: It's a new series called “The Ink Thief”

TOYAH: Yes, with Richard O'Brien playing the "Ink Thief". I'm a dog (below)

JUDY: So you're all animals?

TOYAH: Yes, we're all kind of half-dog, half-animal, half-human. We all have the ability to speak and act

RICHARD: Did you get a choice about which animal you were going to be?

TOYAH: (laughs) I was involved with the creative talks at the beginning. We thought a dog would be very funny for me, being kind of considered a glamorous rock and roll singer. “Toyah's a dog!”

JUDY: I think you've got a feline face. More of a cat face

TOYAH: I have played a cat. Animals seem to be my speciality. I was a cat with Dawn French in “Little Pig Robinson”, many years ago in the film. Dawn was playing a pig along with Jennifer


JUDY: I'm going talk a bit more about this new series but talking about this whole body image thing, which Dawn has. She's really really got her teeth into it. She's really going for it

TOYAH: Quite right

JUDY: And good for her. Absolutely. We're talking about body image and binging and starving in the phone-in today. You used to do that?

TOYAH: I think every young woman, when she first becomes aware of men and fashion, starves herself. I went on my first diet when I was about 12, and it was hugely successful. I looked brilliant, and I only lost about six pounds. But then I'd say I spent right up till the age of 27 starving myself

I mean, not dramatically. There was certainly no throwing up, nothing like that. But being very food conscious I think it's incredibly boring. I'm 35 now, and I don't give a damn. I'm very proud of how I look. I don't know the name of the guest earlier ...?

JUDY and RICHARD: (a model) Dandida (?)

TOYAH: I think the fashion world has a lot to answer for. I really do

RICHARD: Do you think it might change now? I don't mean this year or even next? I was saying earlier to Candida - one's heard these random conversations and random articles, but they do seem to be coming together now into a general and more organised backlash against the fashion industry. Do you think it's happening?

TOYAH: I don't think so much a backlash. It's probably a backlash against prices of clothes and very thin models. But I think it's about self-confidence and self-confidence has nothing to do with your body size. It's to do with you

RICHARD: It shouldn't have anything to do with it

JUDY: What stopped you? When you say that this went until you were 27  -you're 35 now. What made you stop starving yourself?


TOYAH: Self-confidence, truly finding my own voice without being influenced by others. And an absolute passionate love of food (Richard laughs) My emotional and social life is based on food. I love it!

JUDY: But you're not at all plump. What do you do? Do you work out a lot?

TOYAH: I'd probably never be seen modelling clothes because of my body size. I'm broad, I'm healthy and I'm stocky, but I have a high pressured life. It's a fast life, and I think that helps me keep things down. Alcohol and chocolate are deadly. I think you do have to make a few compromises and they're out the window

RICHARD: You don't drink at all or just the odd glass of wine?

TOYAH: The odd whiskey once a week, but that's about it - and it's a real treat

JUDY: But otherwise you more or less eat what you want?

TOYAH: Totally, yes

RICHARD: Let's go back to this kid's program and talk about kids programmes in general. What do you think about this debate going on about videos and the influence on kids? Do you think they influence them?

TOYAH: Ooh, you're really getting me answer heavy subjects this morning

RICHARD: Yeah, let's do. Let's talk about it

TOYAH: I am passionate about protecting children. Really passionate about it. I think potential for good and evil is in all of us, right through our lives. At some point in our lives we're educated to choose the right thing - basically good. I think that that time happens in our life before puberty

I feel bewildered sometimes that we allow children to view death as an act of mankind rather than an act of God. When you see continual news and video games where you're killing things or killing people, it kind of numbs your emotions towards human suffering. I think that's unhealthy. I think a child should be protected from all that purely by the love of a parent or parents


JUDY: I also think that people often make analogies with cartoons, don't they? They say well, kids watch cartoons where cats and mice batter each other over their head. It doesn't matter. Well, of course it doesn't matter because they're not human beings, and they know that's a drawing. It's not the same thing at all

TOYAH: Yes, but children go through stages. There's the toilet stage, where they're absolutely obsessed with anything to do with the toilet. Then there's the death stage that comes around the age of eight

I think you've got to be very protective of those stages and very honest with children, but not blatantly letting them see people who've been murdered and splattered. You have to guide them. I think that's our role as adults

RICHARD: I think in the last 20 years, speaking as a society, we haven't been guiding them at all. It's been this liberal view that they should be allowed to watch more or less what they want within certain limits

JUDY: It's the availability of videos. We were talking with our older boys the other day about these new guidelines that there'll be tougher fines, tougher penalties for video rental shops if they rent videos to younger kids

I don't think the problem is that at all, and neither do they. They have problems renting 18+ videos anyway. The problem is that when the adults get them and leave them lying around the house

TOYAH: Yes

RICHARD: The other thing is, just thinking back to your show, the kind of kids television. Kids television, when I was a kid, basically had a strong moral content. If you watch "The Woodentops" (a UK kids programme 1955-1973), haha, let's have a laugh at "The Woodentops". But there was a moral content to it

Most of the stories had some kind of moral dimension, which, in a very simple way show children that if you were nasty and cruel to the dog, then the dog might suffer. And therefore it was nasty

TOYAH: We're in such a technical age and things are available to children and children are incredibly intelligent. (For example) their knowledge of computers. I have no knowledge of computers, but a child has. That is accessing them to an incredible wealth of knowledge

RICHARD: That they're probably too young to understand

TOYAH: Yes, and this is probably really dramatic, but some computer systems have a pornography thingie you can access. A child will find that no problem at all


JUDY: Your new series looks very innocent. Is it?

TOYAH: It's absolutely crazy. "The Ink Thief" is this character who can absorb print off the page. He's timeless, he can time travel. All the animals around him are called "Bumps" and we have to guide him

Richard O'Brien's character goes off the rails and starts absorbing print to become human, to become powerful, rather than to create the future. So we're all these really mad creatures trying to save the world

JUDY: When does it start?

TOYAH: It starts at the end of May on ITV

RICHARD: What time does it go out?

TOYAH: 4.25

RICHARD: Series of seven?

TOYAH: Series of seven. Rock and roll, half cartoon, half drama. It uses all -

RICHARD: Mixed with animation and all that kind of -?

TOYAH: Yeah

JUDY: Sounds like a lot of fun. And you're singing for us at the end of the show your new single “Now And Then” ?

TOYAH: Yes. I'm on the road at the moment, and “Now and Then” is the single out on the third of May

RICHARD: OK, there it is. Toyah's singing a new single “Now And Then” at the end of the programme. You can catch the new series soon on ITV. Nice to see you again, as always

TOYAH: Good to see you

Watch the interview HERE