After playing a member of the anarchic and murderous girl gang in the 1978 punk film Jubilee, actress and singer Toyah Willcox is revisiting the story in its first stage version. Is she still punk, 40 years on?
“I can’t live in a world of dullards,” Toyah says. “So I think on that level, I’m definitely punk.”
Toyah, who forged an acting career while also making her name as a pop star, is still rebelling against the expectations of society – in her own way.
“For me, it’s non-conformist,” she says. “I’m just not interested in the norm. The only example I can give you is I can’t go to a hairdresser and talk about holidays. I just don’t live in that world. It’s not me.”
Being punk means something different in 2017 compared with 1977. But the world’s a different place now, and Toyah is almost 60.
As a 19-year-old, she played the orange-haired pyromaniac Mad in the original Jubilee. She’s not returning to that role on stage – this time, she’s playing Queen Elizabeth I, who travels forward 400 years to find her country falling apart.
Source: BBC
