Toyah and Robert Fripp are back after month-long hiatus

(Image credit: Toyah Willcox)

They say a month is a long time in politics, but it's even longer if you're a fan of Toyah Willcox and Robert Fripp and their much-loved Sunday Lunch shenanigans, for it's been an entire 34 days since the Britain's friskiest couple broke out their cover of the J. Geils Band's 1982 smash Centrefold.

The barren stretch is over. The hiatus halted. Toyah and Robert have reformed. And the nation can relax, safe in the knowledge news that the occupants of Worcestershire's most iconic kitchen are once again bringing much needed gaiety to the internet via the medium of somewhat ragged but undeniably entertaining cover versions.

The 2023 Comeback Special features King Crimson man Fripp and his perky pop-punk partner performing Joan Jett's Bad Repulation, a song originally written by Jett and co-writer Kenny Laguna about the difficulties faced by the former Runaway as she tried to get a record deal in the wake of the band's break-up.

"I always wore it as a badge of honour," Jett told Rolling Stone last year. "Because what people were saying to me was I had a bad reputation because I played an electric guitar and I had black hair and a leather jacket, and maybe I swore... So I turned around the meaning of it, and I'm proud of my bad reputation."

In the typically boisterous video, Willcox makes it quite apparent that she doesn't give a damn about her reputation either, delivering Jett's lyrics with notable vigour while plastering Fripp's forehead with heart-shaped post-it notes. At the song's climax, Fripp turns to camera sand growls, "I'm bad," before clarifying matters with a smile: "But Toyah and Robert have an exquisite reputation."

Also, Toyah has had her hair done. It's very nice.

Artists

Online Editor at Louder/Classic Rock magazine since 2014. 40 years in music industry, online for 27. Also bylines for: Metal Hammer, Prog Magazine, The Word Magazine, The Guardian, The New Statesman, Saga, Music365. Former Head of Music at Xfm Radio, A&R at Fiction Records, early blogger, ex-roadie, published author. Once appeared in a Cure video dressed as a cowboy, and thinks any situation can be improved by the introduction of cats. Favourite Serbian trumpeter: Dejan Petrović.