My top 5 Toyah moments
Christmas with Spider
I’ll always remember my first Christmas on the show when Toyah had just gone vegetarian. She’d met Spider and was completely besotted and influenced by him.
Les had got hold of a live turkey and he was going to get Janice to pluck and cook it. Toyah was appalled and the turkey escaped.
It was real camp comedy and it was very much the best of what the Battersbys then were all about.
First love and protests
I loved the protests Toyah went on with Spider. They were the formative years in her life and even now you can see how they shaped the woman she still is. It’s nice to think that her first love could have had such a big impact on her.
Tackling issue of rape
The rape storyline was hugely important for me. It was the first very dramatic, issuebased storyline I was involved in and as a young actress it was a big deal. The storyline wasn’t without its critics, but I did a lot of research and I took the responsibility that came with it very seriously.
Surrogacy
Since coming back, I loved the baby surrogate storyline along with Eva, played by Catherine Tyldesley. It might have seemed very soapy in a “that would never happen sort of way”, but it turned into something really human and beautiful and got pulled into the Aidan suicide story. It ended up bigger and better than I thought it would.
Why date one sister when two will do?
This is a silly one but when Imran was dating Toyah and Leanne it gave Jane and I the opportunity to play some comedy. It was a baptism of fire for Charlie, who plays Imran, and the fact it led into a DAFT FUN Imran relationship for gets double trouble them was great.