Q&A with Sandi Toksvig

Hi Sandi, where do we find you today?

I’m in my study in the middle of woods. It’s quite high up, so it feels like a tree house. I’m looking out over a lake. It’s lovely!

You’re hitting the road soon to showcase your new novel, Friends Of Dorothy. What can audiences expect?

Anybody who’s seen my show before knows that I go off in what I call rabbit holes of curiosity. But I’m going to be talking about books in general. I’m going to find the cleverest person in the room and we’ll have some unexpected laughs along the way. No two shows are ever the same.

Will there be a Q&A session as well?

Yes. I like to see what the audience asks me, although some of it can be curious. There was a woman in Cardiff who asked me what my bra size was. I couldn’t remember, so she had to come up and have a look.

You’re also giving a copy of the book to everyone who buys a ticket…

Yes, every single person gets a copy. I hope it will make people laugh out loud. The idea is you come to the show and have a good laugh. It’s very important that we spend time together laughing. You are 30 times more likely to laugh in the company of others than on your own. But then you go home with the book and carry on laughing.

Your audiences are always full of such lovely people.

We just have a nice time. It’s a bit like having a cup of tea one-on-one, but with a thousand people. It’s very chatty. One time I asked ‘Who’s got the strangest job?’ This old man said he was the last handmade bicycle maker in Britain. He told us all about it and I said, ‘Well, that’s marvellous, thank you,’ and moved on. But he got out of his seat and came all the way down to the front and started banging on the stage saying, ‘I haven’t finished.’ So I got a chair and a cup of tea and allowed him to carry on.

The novel is about a family that is not biological but logical. Can you expound on that a bit?

It refers particularly to the LGBT+ community. People who maybe lose their biological family through cultural issues or personal issues. As you get older, I find a lot of my friends have become my family. I’m lucky enough to have also got my biological family. But particularly for gay people who’ve been chucked out of their families, it’s important to create your own. But it can be anyone. So it’s a celebration of those families.

And what about the family in the novel?

Well, it’s the story of a young lesbian couple who are lucky enough to buy their first home. But when they move in, the old woman from whom they’ve purchased it, a 79-year-old cantankerous woman called Dorothy, has failed to move out. She hasn’t left. And comedy ensues. It turns out it’s very difficult to get rid of somebody.

How much of your own experience about raising families is in the novel?

It’s a world I understand. I wrote a novel set in the Boer War, and I had to do an enormous amount of research. So for this one, I thought I’m just going to sit down and write an amusing novel, and I’m not going to do any research. So it helps that I understand how families work. I’ve got three children with my previous partner. It draws on what I know, but it’s not in any way autobiographical. It’s just something I made up from my head.

You clearly love touring and it’s not something you’re about to give up. What makes live performance so special for you?

We all need to be together. And not be looking at our screens. I quite often ask the audience, ‘Has anybody ever been on the local radio?’ A woman put her hand up and said she was the longest baby in Lancashire. Who knew that was even a thing! Or we had the chairwoman of the British Moth Appreciation Society. It’s the unexpectedness. My wife and I didn’t meet on an app. We met in a slightly unexpected way. You might be sitting next to the person you’re going to spend the rest of your life with. There’s something very life-affirming about being in an audience and having a laugh. It’s good for our mental health. I’ve always loved it. I started in theatre. My first job was at the Nottingham Playhouse in rep. I guess it’s the bug that never leaves you.

You were pretty keen to get back after the pandemic. With your show Next Slide, Please.

Almost straight away. Being isolated wasn’t good for us. And there’s still some remnants of that. People who decided to work from home and who didn’t get out and about. And I think we still are pulling ourselves back from that.

What are you like when you’re touring? Are you a rock ’n’ roll animal on the road? 

No, no. I just spend my time in libraries. I like quiet. I like to read. I have a very weird thing called nervous inertia, which is that directly before a show I’m always asleep. But it’s actually just nerves. It’s a way of being anxious. I appear to be incredibly relaxed because five minutes before the show, somebody has to come and wake me up.

Come on Sandi, I’m going to get this out of you. You must have done one wild and crazy thing.

I don’t know. I don’t know.

You dropped a teacup once?

Well, I wrote the book for Mamma Mia! The Party, which is on at the O2. We had our five-year anniversary party with a bunch of Swedes and had crayfish for supper. I was filming for a travel show and in order to be polite I was drinking at the same rate as everybody else. I got so drunk and on camera you can see me trying to put the head back on a crayfish. I was trying to find the correct body for the head that had been pulled off. I was very drunk.

I hear you’re restoring some ancient woodland. Have you turned into a country girl?

I absolutely love it. It’s my favourite place to be in the world. Every Sunday morning, we gather a group of volunteers and we go out and restore it bit by bit. Last weekend, we managed to unblock an ancient stream. It was thrilling just standing there, watching it flow and knowing that we’re doing good for the land.

Will you be demonstrating any of your newfound chainsaw skills on stage?

I mean, it could happen. Last Christmas, I carved a block of ice into a vodka luge. What happened was every time I needed to call somebody out with a chainsaw, it was like 500 quid. So I learned to do it. I love it. We all cheer every time we release an oak tree to a bit of sunlight. There’s so many pictures of me covered in sawdust.

And how about your new Cambridge fellowship?

For the last year, I’ve been a fellow at Christ’s College, Cambridge. And I’m working on something called the Mappa Mundi Project, which means, I’m sure you know this, the map of the world. Wikipedia is the largest collection of knowledge in humanity’s history. And it is 85% by and about white men. Which is lovely. Of course, we need that. But we also could do with the information about everybody else. So the Mappa Mundi Project seeks to correct that. I’m literally trying to change how we see the world.

You’re always so busy Sandi. But it strikes me that, even though you’re into your 60s now, there’s absolutely no chance of you slowing down.

My kids are very keen for me to slow down. The woodland has helped. And I have grandchildren and I love to be with them. But the world is interesting. And while you have the energy to try and make it a nicer place, it’s not a bad thing, is it? It’s not a bad ambition.

:: Sandi Toksvig’s Friends of Dorothy is at Lighthouse on Saturday 5 October. Tickets available at Sandi Toksvig – Lighthouse (lighthousepoole.co.uk)