Laurence Andrew "Lol" Tolhurst (born 3 February 1959) is a founding member and former drummer and keyboardist of British band The Cure. He left The Cure in 1989 and was later involved in the band Presence and his current project Levinhurst, a portmanteau of Tolhurst and his wife vocalist Cindy Levinsons' surnames. As of 2011, he has briefly reunited with The Cure for selected shows, but has not officially rejoined.

Tolhurst was born in Horley, Surrey, England, the fifth of six children of William and Daphne Tolhurst; he has three brothers (Roger, Nigel, and John) and two sisters (Jane and Barbara). He is also the uncle of Nick Tolhurst, an author on Corporate Social Responsibility and head of the Institute for Corporate Culture Affairs He is also distantly related to the composer George Tolhurst. His birthday coincided with the day of the plane crash that killed Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and The Big Bopper. Tolhurst was five years old when he first met Robert Smith at St. Francis Primary and Junior Schools, and thus began a friendship that culminated in the formation of The Cure.

The Cure are an English alternative rock band formed in Crawley, West Sussex in 1976. The band has experienced several line-up changes, with frontman, vocalist, guitarist and principal songwriter Robert Smith being the only constant member. The Cure first began releasing music in the late 1970s with its debut album Three Imaginary Boys (1979); this, along with several early singles, placed the band as part of the post-punk and New Wave movements that had sprung up in the wake of the punk rock revolution in the United Kingdom. During the early 1980s, the band's increasingly dark and tormented music helped form the gothic rock genre.

After the release of Pornography (1982), the band's future was uncertain and Smith was keen to move past the gloomy reputation his band had acquired. With the 1982 single "Let's Go to Bed" Smith began to place a pop sensibility into the band's music (as well as a unique stage look). The Cure's popularity increased as the decade wore on, especially in the United States where the songs "Just Like Heaven", "Lovesong" and "Friday I'm in Love" entered the Billboard Hot 100 chart. By the start of the 1990s, The Cure were one of the most popular alternative rock bands in the world. The band is estimated to have sold 27 million albums as of 2004. The Cure have released thirteen studio albums, 10 EPs and over thirty singles during the course of their career. Since 2010, they have been working on a fourteenth studio album.