“It feels like a full-circle moment because the Royal Albert Hall is where I did my first out performance and spoke about being a lesbian on stage,” says Sandi Toksvig about her upcoming Christmas show.

Sandi Claus is Coming to Town, featuring the BBC Concert Orchestra and the London Gay Men’s Chorus, will grace London’s Royal Albert Hall on Wednesday (18 December).

But the broadcaster, comedian and author has come a long way to reach this “full-circle moment”.

Sandi came out 30 years ago when she and then partner Peta Stewart had their third child. They have two daughters, Megan and Jesse, and son Theo, who are all now in their thirties.

‘We had to go into hiding’

Reflecting on coming out, Sandi tells PinkNews: “We were more and more aware that we didn’t want our children growing up in the shadow of a secret. I was fully prepared to give up my career and go and do something else because my children were far more important to me.

“Death threats came immediately, we had to go into hiding. It was genuinely the most terrifying time of my life,” Sandi recalls, adding that she vividly remembers carrying her “new baby son across the garden in the dark to a small back gate where a car was waiting to take us into hiding”.

Now married to psychotherapist Debbie, whom she met in 2000, Sandi remains close to Peta and jokes that their relationship is “tremendous in a very lesbian way”.

Theo and Debbie will be part of the Albert Hall performance, alongside West End star Carrie Hope Fletcher. Sandi says she is “really excited about” the production, which will feature “300 people celebrating queer Christmas on stage.”

She goes on to say: “Despite the fact that everybody said my career was over, here I still am. We’ve got no money, and we’re putting on this huge show but it’s my present to the LGBTQ+ community and all its allies.

“This is for everybody. We started out with 120 members of the BBC Concert Orchestra and 20 members of the Gay Men’s Chorus, but now we’ve had 147 members of the chorus sign up. 

“If you enjoy a Netflix Christmas movie, you’ll be in line with the plot of what we’re doing. We are creating a giant family of all of us together, and I encourage the community to come together and hold each other.”

The show aims to ‘represent the gamut of love’

The production, she says, will “represent the gamut of love” and allow people to “be who you want to be and know that we love you”.

Sandi’s activism stems from her own struggles and was ignited by a sense of anger when, as a young woman, she read The Well of Loneliness, by Radclyffe Hall. The challenges she has faced have ultimately made her “a nicer person”. 

When she came out, Sandi faced hostility in the newspapers, and today’s anti-trans rhetoric in the British media makes her feel “very stressed.” She reflects on how, 30 years ago, people feared “lesbians were going to destroy society as we know it”. Now, she sees the transgender community as the target of this same fear.

“I won’t stand by and let that happen. I will stand up each time and say no. Clearly, if you’re anti-trans, it’s because you don’t have any trans friends. If you did, you wouldn’t be able to look yourself in the [mirror] as you say these terrible things.”

She wants to see “more trans people in the public eye,” whether it be in politics or on television. Offering a comforting word to the transgender community, she says: “Please know I understand and I’m here. I don’t know for what, for a cuddle? I’m here to be the grandma lesbian who goes, ‘Let’s just keep going’.”

‘It’s hard to understand that kind of blind prejudice’

Sandi, who succeeded Stephen Fry as the host of QI in 2016, recalls another difficult time: during her final year at Cambridge University when her college discovered she was a lesbian and threatened to expel her. She was allowed to remain only because of her “excellent academic record”. She now jokes, “So, here’s a top tip for all gay people: if you’re going to be gay, be clever because otherwise you’re completely fu**ed.”

Despite loving her time at Cambridge, she says: “I didn’t know I didn’t belong. It was shocking and distressing.” She remembers that “many of the staff did not speak to me'”, and adds: “It’s hard to understand that kind of blind prejudice. There were no queer clubs of any kind, there was no queer support. I felt like the loneliest gay person on the planet.”

Now, Sandi looks forward to spending Christmas with her four grandchildren and her wife. Reflecting on 1979, she says she never imagined she would be where she is today, preparing to host a grand queer Christmas celebration at the Royal Albert Hall for everyone to enjoy.

Sandi Claus is Coming to Town is at London’s Royal Albert Hall on Wednesday (18 December), starting at 7.30pm.

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