EIGHTIES punk star Toyah Willcox comes to Stroud for the first time next week for a gig at the Sub Rooms.

The 56-year-old singer, actress and reality TV star - who hit the charts in 1981 with It's A Mystery and I Want To Be Free and appeared in The Who-inspired 1979 film Quadrophenia - will be at the central Stroud venue on September 5, to give an unplugged storyteller’s style gig.

Toyah will perform an acoustic set of her hit singles, alongside recalling stories from her colourful, thirty-five year career.

She told the SNJ: “My shows aren’t self-indulgent, I want to share them with the audience, so it will be very up-beat.”

Toyah's music career has notched up 8 top 40 singles and 25 albums. She has also made 10 feature films and was a contestant on reality television show Splash earlier this year, and on I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here in 2003.

Looking back on her career, she reflected: "I'm not a go-back person, I've had some wonderful moments and I regret nothing. But I've always enjoyed the moment.

“I’ve never been busier, I’ve never been more in control, I’ve never enjoyed myself more than I am at the moment,” she said.

“I’m on the road constantly, but, because I want to protect my voice - I use quite a long range, I like to have four or five octaves - I won’t sing more than three times a week. In the rest of the week I’m a business woman, setting up contracts for shows over the next 12 months.

“I don’t really watch television, so if I’m not working in the evening, I’m working at my instruments.

“At the moment I’m learning violin, but that’s just because I’m trying to increase how the left and the right side of my brain communicate to each other, which, as a dyslexic I constantly have to do.”

Toyah: Up Close and Personal is at the Sub Rooms on September 5 at 8pm. Tickets are available from the Sub Rooms or via www.subscriptionrooms.org.uk