Toyah Willcox reveals ‘main focus in life’ – and it isn’t husband Robert Fripp

Anyone who witnessed her spirited jive to Nutbush City Limits on the last series of would know that singer Toyah Willcox is not short on energy. And a quick glance at her schedule for 2025 would suggest she has no plans to slow down.

She will join the cast of NOW That’s What I Call A Musical next month, there’s a new album in the offing and if that wasn’t enough, she recently bought an old 1890s industrial water mill on the River Avon, which she is renovating and restoring back to its original structure.

“I love it,” she enthuses. “I spent all day yesterday removing trees that washed up in the floods; it’s a really physical project.

“I’ve always got something on the go. Anyone that sits still can’t bear being with me. I adore working and I always will. My main focus in life is my work. I think if I didn’t work, the boredom would eat me alive.

“Retiring isn’t a word that works for me – it’s too final. I’m a total workaholic and I’m unforgiving if someone doesn’t pull their weight or is lackadaisical. That’s what I am and I’m not suddenly going to change.”

It is this passion that saw the 66-year-old wowing audiences of the One dance competition before she became the second celebrity to leave the dancefloor. Yet as disappointed as she was to go, Toyah refuses to be downbeat.

“I absolutely loved every minute,” she beams. “I was worried about the training because a lot of contestants in the past said it was really hard, but it just revved me up. I trained seven hours a day and my partner Neil Jones and I got on so well.

“My aim was to fly the flag for older women. I’ve had a hip replacement, but I think it’s really important to signal to people that they can have a really good, long life, but there is a rule book about it – eat well, keep moving and have a positive mindset.

“The day after I left Strictly, I called my agent and said: ‘I’ve just seen a show where they put a celebrity on a desert island. Can I do it?’ I like having to think on my feet and learn things.”

Toyah shot to fame in the early 1980s with hit singles including It’s a Mystery, I Want to Be Free and Thunder in the Mountains.

With her brightly coloured hair, flamboyant dress sense and rebellious attitude she stood out from the crowd and was nominated for British Breakthrough Act and Best Female Solo Artist at the Brit Awards for three consecutive years, winning in 1982.

Born in Birmingham, she enjoyed a comfortable upbringing. Her father ran a successful joinery business and owned three factories, and her mother was a former professional dancer who gave up her career to raise Toyah and her two siblings.

She attended a private girls’ school but was bullied and frequently in trouble with her teachers.

“I think I rebelled against people telling me I was wrong all the time,” she reflects. “From the age of about five, when you realise you’re an independent soul, right up until the age of 17, I’d just had enough of people telling me that what I felt, what I needed, what I wore and what I wanted to do was wrong. So, I did it anyway.

“I think that spirit has pushed me forward throughout my life. I still don’t quite fit in. Nobody sees me as conventional. My lovely friend (the singer) Carol Decker thinks I’m as mad as a fruitcake and that’s fine.”

Even before her singing career took off, Toyah was drawn to the world of showbusiness. After leaving school she worked as a dresser in local theatres, assisting the stars of the day in touring companies at the Birmingham Hippodrome and Alexandra Theatre.

“It was a really happy time, I made incredibly close relationships with Judy Neeson and Sylvia Sims,” she recalls with a smile. “I dressed John Le Mesurier and Ian Lavender on Dad’s Army – it was a nice way to earn a living.”

After appearing in a play, she was hired to work at the National Theatre in London, before Derek Jarman offered her ‘any part you want’ in his punk film Jubilee.

A role in the 1979 film Quadrophenia followed and her appearance in The Tempest won her a nomination as Best Newcomer at the 1980 Evening Standard Awards.

At the same time her singing career was taking off and by 1981 she had won The Smash Hits’ readers’ polls for Best Female Singer and Most Fanciable Female, beating Kim Wilde to second place.

Yet she remains unconvinced that her looks have had a great deal to do with her career. “If I was born looking like Farrah Fawcett Majors, I think I would have had more success. I would have had a lot more husbands possibly too,” she laughs.

“But you have to accept who and what you are and make the most of it and I think that’s what I’ve done. I think I look ok, but there’s no point trying to be something you’re not.”

In 1986 Toyah married guitarist Robert Fripp, founding member of the group King Crimson, but two years later, when she turned 30, she underwent a crisis of confidence.

“I never planned for my 30s because life for me only existed in your 20s, so suddenly at 30 I was flailing,” she explains.

“I didn’t want children, I’d lived remarkable dreams and it was like, ‘well, what do I do?’ I then met a new agent who said I was going to present and I ended up in the ’s biggest shows, which I never expected.”

For a decade she presented on shows ranging from Songs of Praise and the Heaven and Earth show, to Holiday and This Morning. But at the start of the new Millennium the 1980s musical revival saw her back in demand touring alongside other 1980s music icons.

Her last album Posh Pop went to number one in 36 different charts and she will play herself in Now That’s What I Call A Musical in Edinburgh in February, singing the songs that made her famous.

Set in 1989 and 2009 and with access to the entire back catalogue of songs that appeared on the iconic Now That’s What I Call Music! albums, the show promises audiences the chance to revisit the playlists of their lives, featuring music from Blondie, Spandau Ballet, Eurythmics and of course Toyah herself.

“The show opens with two women dreading the school reunion and the memories it’s going to bring,” Toyah explains. “Then the music comes in and then I come in and I solve the lead character’s problems. It’s about how amazing and informative and uplifting music is.”

Her appearance follows hot on the heels of her latest tour with her husband, entitled Toyah & Robert’s Christmas Party.

In lockdown the couple launched a hugely successful and often hilarious Sunday Lunch YouTube series, but Toyah says they will not tour together again.

“My husband is 78 and that was his last tour and possibly one of the last times he played live,” she explains.

But Toyah plans to keep going and going herself: “I have a lot of physical energy and he has a lot of mental energy so we balance each other out. He does my thinking and I do his exercise.

“I live in a house with five floors, which keeps me fit and then yesterday I moved 20 tree trunks on my own.

“I also don’t eat very much. I’m vegan and I only really eat raw fruit and vegetables. As soon as I have something cooked or with a sauce my energy flags.

“I did a film with Katharine Hepburn called The Corn is Green when I was 19 and she told me that in you were weighed before you even walked on to the studio floor. That ingrained something into me that I’ve never let go of.”

Meanwhile Toyah continues to set herself new goals every year: “My New Year’s Resolution is always just to do better than the year before and to keep in touch with how I present myself to the world.

“I could easily walk around the streets in tracksuit bottoms covered in leaves, but instead I wear the best clothes I have. I try to make my hair look neat and I always wear make-up – even if I’m just going to the shops. I don’t want people taking photos of me with no eyeliner on!”

Toyah Willcox stars at Edinburgh Playhouse in NOW That’s What I Call A Musical. All tour dates at thenowmusical.com