toyah willcox

For 51 years Toyah Willcox has taken to the stage like no other. She has won numerous awards and nominations from singing to writing to acting. In 2001 Toyah was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Central England in Birmingham. In 2018 Paul McCartney awarded Toyah a LIPA Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts Companionship for Outstanding Achievement in music, drama, performance and media.

From punk princess to cult stage actress, Toyah Willcox is a uniquely gifted performer and an inextinguishable flame. Charismatic, outspoken and impossible to categorise, she is one of Britain's beloved household names – an award-winning rock legend as well as a much-loved stage/screen actress and music composer. Toyah has amassed thirteen top 40 singles, recorded twenty-five albums, written two books, appeared in over forty stage plays, acted in over twenty feature films and presented hundreds of television programmes.

Toyah's latest achievements mirror her meteoric rise to fame. In 2021, Toyah released Posh Pop, a brand new critically acclaimed studio album, which reached No.1 in the independent charts and hit the Top 30 in the UK Album charts. Following on from this success, Toyah has reissued her solo and band albums from 1978 to 2021, all achieving chart success. In June 2020 Toyah released Mesmerised, which compiles rarities and remixes spanning 1985-1994. Toyah's most recent musical releases are the remastered 40th Anniversary edition of her 1981 hit EP Four From Toyah, Sensational (Posh Redux), Crimson Queen: Rhythm Deluxe Edition, Brave New World: Special EP, Latex Messiah (Viva La Rebel In You), Live At Drury Lane and The Changeling: Super Deluxe Edition.

This is testament to Toyah's legacy as an artist, where she is being discovered by a new generation of fans, with the front rows at her shows now often filled with those under 25. “They identify with my songs”, says Toyah. “When I ask how they know my lyrics, they say ‘It's about my life’“. Toyah's regular performances at Glastonbury and Isle of Wight festivals in recent years further demonstrate her broad and lasting public appeal among audiences.

The hit singles It's A Mystery, I Want to Be Free, Brave New World and platinum-selling albums Anthem and The Changeling confirmed her status as one of the most significant talents of the 1980s. In 1982 she won the Best Female Singer at the British Rock & Pop Awards, who went on to become The Brits. On Christmas Eve 1981 Toyah's concert at Drury Lane Theatre Royal was broadcast live on BBC2 as The Old Grey Whistle Test to viewing figures of over 10 million. 2016 saw Toyah's first musical as co-composer open in the open air Scoop London rock musical production of Dostoyevsky's Crime & Punishment.

Toyah's success is not limited to her vocal ability, however, and she effortlessly demonstrates her versatility as an artist no better than in her plaudits as a star of stage and screen. In 2021, she played ‘Alice’ in award-winning drama Give Them Wings, and was awarded Judge's Special Mention award at The Richard Harris International Film Festival for her performance. Toyah also starred in short film, Weightless, in 2023, which won Best Experimental Film at the Soho London Independent Film Festival.

Toyah's further screen credits include: The Ghosts Of Borley Rectory, To Be Someone, and the acclaimed cult Brit film Ahhhhhhhh!, directed by Steve Oram and co-starring Julian Rhind-Tutt, Noel Fielding and Julian Barratt.

In 1977 celebrated and provocative film director Derek Jarman offered Toyah the role of ‘Mad’ in seminal punk epic Jubilee. Toyah recently revisited Jubilee, starring as Queen Elizabeth II in an acclaimed stage adaptation, which captured the essence of the film and had a majority genderfluid cast. Toyah teamed up with Derek Jarman again to play Miranda in his innovative version of The Tempest, which won her a nomination as Best Newcomer in the Evening Standard Awards. Toyah's other notable film roles have included acting alongside such luminaries as Katherine Hepburn in The Corn is Green and Laurence Olivier in The Ebony Tower. Toyah also played ‘Monkey’ in the long-idolised Quadrophenia, celebrating its 40th anniversary in 2019 with a series of special events and projects which involved the entire cast including Phil Daniels, Sting and Leslie Ash.

In 2023 she won the Great British Sewing Bee: Celebrity Christmas Special on BBC One. Toyah also won Celebrity Mastermind in 2018, with her specialist subject being Boudica.

During the first lockdown of 2020 Toyah started to produce short films for her YouTube Channel: Toyah YouTube, that not only gathered a worldwide following but also an extraordinary amount of press attention across the world, regularly being featured in Rolling Stone Magazine.

Based from her kitchen at home, Toyah and her husband Robert Fripp posted films every Sunday lunchtime featuring their music performances. The style is quintessentially British humour but also adding a creative quality that has seen Toyah influencing trends around the world.

Toyah has most recently taken part in the 20th anniversary series of Strictly Come Dancing for BBC One.