SANDI Toksvig
Born in Copenhagen, Sandi Toksvig began her comedy career at Girton College, Cambridge University, where she wrote and performed in the first all-woman show at the Footlights. She also performed at the Footlights alongside Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, Tony Slattery, and Emma Thompson, and wrote additional material for the Perrier award-winning Cambridge Footlights Revue. She was also a member of Cambridge University Light Entertainment Society, and moved via children’s television onto the comedy circuit.
After leaving University Sandi’s career path has be varied to say the least! Her work on television began presenting the children’s series No. 73 (1982–1986) as a character called Ethel Davis, from there she quickly moved into the world of comedy; Sandi performed at the first night of The Comedy Store in London and was part of The Comedy Store Players, an improvisational comedy team. She has also been seen fronting a variety of factual programmes such as the archaeological Channel 4 series Time Team, Island Race, and The Talking Show, produced by Open Media for Channel 4. She has appeared as a panelist in shows such as Call My Bluff (a regular as a team captain), I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue, Whose Line Is It Anyway?, Mock the Week, QI and Have I Got News for You. She appeared in the very first episode of Have I Got News For You in 1990. She was the host of What the Dickens, a Sky Arts quiz show.
She is a familiar voice for BBC Radio 4 listeners, as the chair of The News Quiz, and Sandi continues to be the main presenter of its travel programme Excess Baggage. For three years until December 2005 she presented a weekday lunchtime programme on London talk radio station LBC 97.3, featuring regular guests including Bonnie Langford, Alkarim Jivani, and Annie Caulfield.
Sandi has appeared in a number of stage plays, including Androcles and the Lion, Much Ado About Nothing and The Comedy of Errors. Most recently Sandi wrote a play entitled Bully Boy which focused on post traumatic stress among British servicemen. The play premiered at the Nuffield Theatre in Southampton in May 2011 and starred Anthony Andrews.
Not only that, in 2002, Sandi co-wrote a musical Big Night Out, at the Little Palace Theatre, written for the Watford Palace Theatre, with Dilly Keane, in which they appeared with Bonnie Langford. Sandi also wrote a Shakespeare deconstruction with Elly Brewer, called The Pocket Dream, which Sandi performed in at the Nottingham Playhouse and which transferred to the West End for a short run.
And if that wasn’t enough Sandi has also penned several fiction and non-fiction books for children and adults, spanning a variety of genres. Her first outing was in 1994 with Tales from the Norse’s Mouth, a fiction tale for children. In 1995, she sailed around the coast of Britain with John McCarthy. In 2003, she published her travel biography, Gladys Reunited: A Personal American Journey, about her travels in the USA retracing her childhood. She writes regular columns for Good Housekeeping, the Sunday Telegraph and The Lady. In October 2008 she published Girls Are Best, a history book for girls. In 2009 her collected columns for the Sunday Telegraph were published in book form as The Chain of Curiosity.
Phew!