46 Facts About Sandi Toksvig

Sandra Birgitte Toksvig is a Danish-British writer, comedian and broadcaster on British radio, stage and television.

Sandi Toksvig is a political activist, having co-founded the Women's Equality Party in 2015.

Sandi Toksvig has written plays, novels and books for children.

Sandi Toksvig took over from Stephen Fry as host of the BBC television quiz show QI in 2016, having been a guest a number of times and she spent ten years hosting The News Quiz on BBC Radio 4.

Sandi Toksvig was the president of the Women of the Year Lunch from 2015 to 2017.

Sandi Toksvig's father, Claus Toksvig, was a Danish journalist, broadcaster, and foreign correspondent; as a result, Toksvig spent most of her youth outside Denmark, mostly in New York City.

Sandi Toksvig has an older brother, Nick, who is a journalist, and a younger sister, Jenifer, a librettist, who was born when Sandi was 12.

When Sandi Toksvig was 24, she was appointed Jenifer's legal guardian.

Sandi Toksvig read law, archaeology and anthropology at Girton College, Cambridge, graduating with a first-class degree and receiving two prizes for outstanding achievement.

Sandi Toksvig began her comedy career at Girton, where she wrote and performed in the first all-woman show at the Footlights.

Sandi Toksvig was there at the same time as Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, Tony Slattery, and Emma Thompson, and wrote additional material for the Perrier award-winning Cambridge Footlights Revue.

Sandi Toksvig was a member of the Cambridge University Light Entertainment Society.

Sandi Toksvig started her television career on children's television, presenting No 73, the Sandwich Quiz, The Saturday Starship, Motormouth, Gilbert's Fridge, for Television South, and factual programmes such as Island Race and The Talking Show, produced by Open Media for Channel 4.

Sandi Toksvig was the host of What the Dickens, a Sky Arts quiz show.

Sandi Toksvig's final show was first broadcast on 26 June 2015.

Sandi Toksvig presented Radio 4's travel programme Excess Baggage until it was axed in 2012.

In 1993, Sandi Toksvig wrote a musical, Big Night Out at the Little Sands Picture Palace, for Nottingham Playhouse, co-starring with Anita Dobson and Una Stubbs.

Sandi Toksvig has appeared in a number of stage plays, including Androcles and the Lion, Much Ado About Nothing, and The Comedy of Errors.

Sandi Toksvig appeared in the Doctor Who audio drama Red by Big Finish Productions, released in August 2006.

Sandi Toksvig wrote a play entitled Bully Boy which focused on post-traumatic stress among British servicemen.

On 28 April 2015, it was announced that Sandi Toksvig would leave BBC Radio 4's The News Quiz in June at the end of the 28th series, which was scheduled to begin on 15 May of that year.

On 30 April 2015, Sandi Toksvig announced that her decision to quit The News Quiz had been made in order to allow her to help set up a new political party named the Women's Equality Party.

In November 2015, Sandi Toksvig was a guest of BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs.

Sandi Toksvig's choices included Joe Nichols, Gustav Winckler, The Weather Girls, Barbra Streisand, and Bonnie Langford.

Sandi Toksvig's book choice was The Ashley Book of Knots, and her luxury item was an endless supply of the Daily Mail.

On 11 June 2019, Sandi Toksvig appeared on former Prime Minister of Australia Julia Gillard's podcast.

Sandi Toksvig has written more than twenty fiction and non-fiction books for children and adults, starting in 1994 with Tales from the Norse's Mouth, a fiction tale for children.

Sandi Toksvig writes regular columns for Good Housekeeping, the Sunday Telegraph and The Lady.

Sandi Toksvig's 2006 young adult book, Hitler's Canary is a Holocaust story told by a boy named Bamse and his family.

In 2020, Sandi Toksvig wrote and presented a podcast series called We Will Get Past This which aimed to provide "virtual chicken soup for the soul" during the COVID-19 lockdown in the UK, by sharing stories of notable women from her book collection.

Sandi Toksvig began presenting the revival edition of the daytime game show Fifteen-to-One in April 2014.

Sandi Toksvig took over from Stephen Fry as host of QI, making her "the first female presenter of a British mainstream TV comedy panel show", a fact she found extraordinary in 2016.

Toksvig presented Channel 4's four-part travel series Extraordinary Escapes with Sandi Toksvig, which premiered on 10 February 2021.

Sandi Toksvig first came to wider public prominence in 1994 because the charity Save the Children dropped her services as compere of its 75th anniversary celebrations after she came out.

Sandi Toksvig was appointed president of the Women of the Year Lunch.

An atheist and humanist, Sandi Toksvig is a patron of Humanists UK.

Sandi Toksvig said the allegations of inappropriate behaviour at the BBC "did not surprise me at all".

Sandi Toksvig had earlier told the Radio Times it would be "absurd" if she did not receive the same salary as him for chairing QI.

Sandi Toksvig was defeated in the first round of voting, achieving 1,179 first-place votes out of about 8,000 cast.

Sandi Toksvig was part of Red Wedge's comedy tour in the 1980s, which supported the Labour Party.

Sandi Toksvig has received some criticism for joking about the Tories in 2011, but has said Prime Minister Theresa May is "a good person".

Sandi Toksvig later explained that she had decided that it was "not too late to fight the good fight, after all".

Sandi Toksvig is the mother of two daughters and a son, born in 1988,1990 and 1994 respectively.

Sandi Toksvig was warned she might never work again, and the family faced death threats and had to go into hiding.

Sandi Toksvig describes her "posh" accent as being the result of a deliberate attempt to copy the voice of Celia Johnson in Brief Encounter, after being ostracised at boarding school for having an American accent.

In late 2022, Sandi Toksvig was hospitalised in Australia with bronchial pneumonia and was forced to cancel her upcoming New Zealand tour dates.