24 influential women who make you proud to be from the Midlands
A century after women first won the right to vote in the UK here’s a look at some of those who inspire us from Birmingham and the West Midlands
What have you done today to make you feel proud? Well reading this list could be a start. It’s International Women’s Day 2018 today and we wanted to acknowledge some of the influential Midlands women who inspire us the most.
Leading columnists, athletes, hugely successful songwriters, doctors, innovators, scientists and more. Our list intentionally misses out serving MPs and politicians – although many are deserving of praise.
Toyah Willcox: from Kings Heath, is a singer with a career spanning more than thirty years. Known for her shocking hair and individual style.
Willcox has enjoyed eight Top 40 singles, released over 20 albums, written two books, appeared in 40 stage plays and 10 films. She has also presented numerous television shows. Between 1977 and 1983 she fronted the band Toyah, before going solo. She has a star on the Kings Heath Walk of Fame.
• Continue reading at the Birmingham Mail. (Photo © Birmingham Mail)
Pointless Celebrities: Challenge: Sunday 18th March: 1pm
Series 6, Episode 14. Alexander Armstrong and Richard Osman present a special celebrity music edition of the quiz that rewards the answers that no-one else could think of. Featuring Mark King and Toyah Willcox, Carol Decker and Limahl, Dave Hill and Dave Bartram and Antony Costa and Scott Robinson. (Photo © BBC)
Only Artists: BBC Radio 4: Wednesday 7th March: 9am/9.30pm
Alice Lowe and Toyah Willcox. Series in which two artists discuss creative questions. Director and actor Alice Lowe, acclaimed for slasher film Prevenge, meets Toyah Willcox who by the age of 20 had played the National Theatre as well as starring in Derek Jarman’s film Jubilee. (Series 4)
• Listen live at bbc.co.uk or catch up later on BBC iPlayer.
Toyah’s 1987 studio album, the hugely underrated, Desire will be released on limited edition translucent red vinyl as a Record Store Day Exclusive on 21 April 2018 – Further info here. See Toyah, as QEI, with the vinyl here.
Neil McCormick’s Needle Time: Vintage TV: Thursday 15th March: 4am
Toyah Willcox. Prolific artist and actor, who enjoyed hits with ‘It’s a Mystery’, ‘Thunder in the Mountains’ and ‘I Want to be Free’, shares the story behind her remarkable career – Running Time: 60 minutes. Vintage TV is available on Sky 369, Freeview 242, Virgin 343 and Freesat 505.
NO FUTURE: Brendan Macdonald reviews Chris Goode’s stage version of Derek Jarman’s Jubilee
“It’s funny isn’t it? In 1977, someone shouting NO FUTURE sounded like the most extreme nihilistic punk. Forty years on, it’s a fact. It’s mainstream climate science.”
As Amyl Nitrate (played by Travis Alabanza) perceives, ‘NO FUTURE’ was once a rallying cry of the punk movement, not just a closing refrain to a Sex Pistols anthem. It spoke of a stark fatalism imbued with fury, frustration, and a deep distrust in the current status quo. Chris Goode’s adaptation of Derek Jarman’s 1978 film Jubilee toys with this articulation, hurtling the punk movement into a future that seemingly shouldn’t exist, to see how it survives.
Goode’s adaptation spars with Jarman’s film, keeping faithful to the central tenets of the piece while modernizing it to reflect the current age. It’s messy, chaotic, sex-fueled, and driven more by affect than narrative. Queen Elizabeth I, brilliantly played by one of the film’s original stars Toyah Willcox, travels to the present day with the help of Lucy Ellinson’s Ariel, and passively witnesses the countercultural energy that’s brewing beneath 21st century neoliberal consumerism.
• Continue reading at Exeunt Magazine. Read Exeunt Magazine’s review of Jubilee at Royal Exchange, Manchester, here.
Chris Goode’s riotous adaptation of Derek Jarman’s seminal film about anarchy in the UK is not for the faint hearted. Featuring simulated sex, unrestrained nudity and mindless acts of violence, this provocative stage version will undoubtedly divide audiences, just as Jarman did in 1978.
Toyah Willcox, who starred as the pyromaniac Mad in the film version, now plays Queen Elizabeth I observing the excesses of a group of friends sharing a squat in Brexit Britain.
Amyl Nitrate (an electrifying performance by Travis Alabanza) serves as our emcee for the evening. Sexual predator Crabs (Rose Wardlaw) lures unsuspecting men home where they often meet a brutal and untimely end, while Bod (Sophie Stone) is the murderous de facto leader of the gang, Ariel, an ethereal presence (Lucy Ellinson), links segments and time.
• Continue reading at the New Camden Journal. (Review by Lucy Popescu)
Snow, snow and, yup, more snow! Brrrr!! Welcome to March in the UK…
