But one mainstay has been performing in pantomimes at Christmas, which this year brings her to Sheffield to play the Wicked Queen in Snow White and the Seven Dwarves at the Lyceum Theatre.

This is her 17th panto appearance. "I have played various roles – Jack, Aladdin, Peter Pan. This will be my sixth time as the Wicked Queen," she reveals.

And she takes them very seriously. "I am very fussy that the panto tells the story because I think these stories are wonderful," she says.

"I also believe that the tradition of panto grew out of Shakespeare roles – Midsummer Night's Dream is a comedy for a wedding celebration and when you look at good pantos the structures are the same.

"You've got the characters pretending to be different sexes and characters pretending to be different people and the fight between good and evil and I think these are very good stories to tell at Christmas."

There are potential difficulties with the staging of Snow White, she says. "Walt Disney made a very famous animated film and it means firstly as a trademark you can't go near that film and secondly you are dealing with a film that demonised the stepmother which feminists don't like.

"And then you are dealing with a production which uses a very unique kind of human being, the dwarves, so I will only do a Snow White which is in total celebration of everyone on that stage and that's what I find very, very good about the Wood family."

Willcox's very first panto was with the father of producer Emily Wood.

"This is complete family entertainment and made for every generation of a family," she says.

"You see grandparents, their children and their children and sometimes their children and it's very moving. That said, in matinees you sometimes just see elderly couples which moves me to tears. It's beautiful."

Toyah Willcox was last in Sheffield on tour in Calamity Jane but admits she is not keen on doing musicals.

"It's a difficult one because I get asked to do them an awful lot and I am really quite avant garde in my tastes," she explains.

"I love pantomime because I think it is the most off-the-wall thing anyone could ever see. A man dressed as a woman, a woman who is royalty playing a murderer, it's utterly bizarre and suits me down to the ground."

She makes an exception for Vampire's Rock, a goth musical which tours one-nighters (in Buxton recently) and doesn't involve long runs which is one of the other reasons she has shied away from offers like Rocky Horror in the West End.

"To be in one place for a year, I am just not used to that. Vampires are in a different place each night. Sheffield, I am here for six weeks, and then I am off to Seattle."

It's the rock 'n' roll lifestyle, perhaps.