The legendary broadcaster reveals that she never even watched Bake Off when she was in it!
Great British Bake Off fans were shocked when Sandi Toksvig confirmed her exit from the hit C4 show this January and she has now spoken more about why she quit. And how she never watches it!
Sandi hosted the show alongside Noel Fielding for three years after it moved to C4 in 2017, but will be replaced by Matt Lucas when the eleventh series gets underway next week.
Speaking in the run-up to her latest C4 series, The Write-Offs, Sandi finally lifted the lid on her reasons for quitting and also hinted that she's never watched an episode of the popular cookery show!
"Like bread, everything has a shelf life," she told says. "I did three years and I loved the team and Prue will always be a life long friend, but I’m 62 years old and I have a lot to do and decided it was probably enough meringue for me!"
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Toksvig, who hosts BBC2 quiz show QI, has enjoyed a remarkable career as a radio and television broadcaster while also writing many books, plays and musicals, yet spoke of how she found The Great British Bake Off's schedule all-consuming.
Sandi on Bake Off - "I didn’t watch it when it I was in it!"
"With all the filming, voice overs and all the bits and pieces that go around it, The Great British Bake Off took up six months of every year," she explained. "I wanted to write a Toksvig Almanac and I've done that now, I was interested in writing an opera and I’m working on that at the moment with my sister and I also had other things that kept coming in that I wanted to do. I don't make TV to be famous, I make it because I care about it."
Sandi also said she was unlikely to tune in to see how her replacement Matt Lucas fared during the new series...
"I didn’t watch it when it I was in it!" she said. "My daughter would text me and say 'Oh it was a very good episode this week' and I’d say "Oh I missed it again!"'
One of the projects Sandi wanted to work on was The Write-Offs, a new two-part series following eight people who lack basic reading and writing skills, as they face their demons and try to learn their letters.
With nearly 8.5m adults struggling to master the basic skills, Britain has one of the worst adult literacy rates in Europe, and it's a subject that's very close to Sandi's heart.
"My son is dyslexic and we really struggled to help him learn to read when he was younger," she explains. "There were those who were quick to write him off and say he must not be very bright or have special needs. There was nothing wrong with his intelligence and I think what happens is people lose confidence. He's now 26 and a wonderful playwright!"
The Write Offs begins on C4 on Tuesday 22nd September at 9.30
