Sandi Toksvig had six years schooling at Mamaroneck High School, New York and later attained a First Class honours degree in Archaeology and Anthropology at Girton College, Cambridge. At Cambridge she was awarded the Theresa Montefiore Memorial Award for outstanding academic achievement. She appeared in a variety of Footlights shows and was the director, writer and performer of the first all female Cambridge Revue.

Theatre credits include a season with the Nottingham Playhouse, one with the New Shakespeare Company at Regents Park and The Pocket Dream which she also co-wrote at the Albery Theatre, London and the musical Big Night Out with songs by Dillie Keane.

Television credits include No 73 (TVS), Behind the Headlines, The Big One with Mike McShane, Have I Got News for You, Island Race with John McCarthy, Whose Line is it Anyway? and Call My Bluff. Sandi was one of the original members of the Comedy Store Players.

Sandi appears on many Radio 4 programmes and is the presenter of the travel programme Excess Baggage and chair of The News Quiz. In 2007 she was voted Broadcaster of the Year by the Broadcast Press Guild and Channel 4 Political Humorist of the Year.

She has written 18 books and has regular columns in the Sunday Telegraph and Good Housekeeping.