“I didn’t watch it before, I didn’t watch it while I was doing it, and it has never occurred to me to watch it since,” says Sandi Toksvig. We’re talking about The Great British Bake-Off, which she co-presented between 2017 and 2020. She didn’t watch herself on one of the biggest shows on British television? Why? “I was there at the time! There are books to read, darling.”
By anyone’s standard, Toksvig is busy: she has written stage plays, musicals, around 30 books for adults and children, toured her own stand-up, presented TV documentaries, comedy programmes and quiz shows – including the BBC One institution QI, which she took over from Stephen Fry in 2016 – all the while campaigning for causes she believes in. “My poor wife,” she sighs. “We have a rule: I’m not allowed to have an idea until she’s had a cup of tea in the morning.”
Born in Denmark – her father Claus was a celebrated Danish foreign correspondent who covered the moon landing in 1969 – Toksvig spent much of her childhood between the UK and America. It was at Cambridge University that she began writing and performing her own material, before starting her career in TV. In the early 90s, she appeared on the first-ever episode of Have I Got News for You – another British TV institution – and she was a regular guest on improvised comedy show Whose Line Is It Anyway?
There is a distinctly British dryness to Toksvig, but a warmth too and a naughtiness that sometimes verges on the smutty. She flips from serious to silly, her humour weaving together obscure facts and stories with her own wry observations.
This is what makes her able to present just about anything – including, of course, a baking contest. She describes herself as “multifaceted” – a storyteller, a writer and a broadcaster. (And yes, a comedian too – but please, don’t call her a “comedienne”).
This Saturday, Toksvig will put on yet another hat: concert host. She is partnering with the London Gay Men’s Chorus for A Winter’s Tale – a wintry, festive-inspired show at London’s Cadogan Hall. She will host two performances, in the afternoon and evening, of a show whose set list spans Take That to Stephen Sondheim via Mary Poppins.
Toksvig’s friendship with Europe’s largest gay choir goes back decades. In 2006, she presented the chorus’s annual Christmas show and they performed at her 2014 wedding to her wife Debbie, where she was given away by her daughter Megan as the choir performed “I’m Getting Married in the Morning”. Two thousand people joined the mass singalong as the couple renewed their vows – converting their 2007 civil partnership into a marriage – at London’s Royal Festival Hall.
“I think they’re inspirational,” she says. “They’re a fantastic representation of the LGBTQ+ community. After our wedding, Debbie and I wanted to say thank you, so we went to one of their rehearsals and brought champagne for them. They sang to us and it was one of the best memories of my life. It was so beautiful.”
When Toksvig came out in 1994, she became one of the most visible lesbian women in British public life. She tells me coming out was about setting an example to her children with former partner, Peta Stewart. “I had three small children and my youngest had just been born. My then-partner and I were not prepared for them to grow up in the shadow of a secret,” she says.
At the time, Section 28 prohibited their own children from learning about LGBTQ+ people in school. “It was more important to me to be a good mum than it was for me to have a career. Everyone told me that my career would be over, but standing up for what you believe in in front of your children – that’s more important.”
Her career didn’t end there. Far from it. Toksvig has become a household name – and has built a loyal queer following – while also using her platform to campaign for equality. In 2015, she founded the Women’s Equality Party. At the last election the new party stood five candidates and, if funding allows, they hope to do so again.
For now, Toksvig’s focus is on the removal of unelected Church of England bishops from the House of Lords. There are only two countries in the world where representatives of the state religion automatically get seats in parliament: the UK and Iran. She wants to make that a party of one, because of the Church of England’s opposition to same-sex marriage and its institutionalised misogyny. (The church is exempt from UK equalities law, so this discrimination is entirely legal).
“It’s shocking. They don’t deal with gay people or women in an equitable manner. And they aren’t some sort of obscure organisation – this is our state church,” Toksvig says. “None of them have been elected. This is our parliament and it’s not OK. Be a bigot if you want to, in your own back yard – but don’t come and play in mine.”
Toksvig has been marching – often in the rain, clutching a wet placard – for years. It feels like a troubling sign of the times that voices like hers feel even more necessary right now. “We’re so clearly going backwards,” she says. “David Cameron is in the Cabinet! It’s like they thought: ‘Who’s at the bottom of the barrel? Oh yes, the guy who ruined the country.’”
She is disturbed by the recent rise in reports of homophobic hate crime and the anti-trans moral panic that has been peddled by politicians and media figures. “I am so distressed by people who call themselves ‘radical feminists’ but are anti-trans. I could weep. I don’t get it. It’s beyond me,” she says. “When the feminist movement started in the 60s and 70s, lesbians were often excluded, because we were told that we would make the movement less palatable. I have been excluded myself, so how could I do that to someone else? It fills me with rage.”
What’s next for Toksvig? Will we ever see her on reality TV as a contestant? “Never!” she responds before I finish the question. She’s not keen on I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here’s “rehabilitation” of Nigel Farage and Matt Hancock, either: “How can we find these men eating testicles amusing? After all that they’ve done? It’s nauseating.”
One thing is for sure: she will never stop speaking out on issues she cares about. “I’ve been an activist all of my life. It’s a core part of who I am,” she says. “We’re here, we’re making noise – and we’re not going away.”
‘A Winter’s Tale’ is at London’s Cadogan Hall on Saturday at 4pm and 7.30pm (lgmc.org.uk)