Sandi Toksvig found hosting ‘Great British Bake Off’ so boring she sunk into depression

Sandi Toksvig found hosting ‘The Great British Bake Off’ so boring she sunk into depression.

The comedian and broadcaster, 66, first joined the popular baking show when it moved from the BBC to Channel 4 in 2017, but stepped down after three series in 2020 – saying at the time she was quitting to “spend more time with my other work”.

But she has now told the ‘Stirring it Up’ podcast about how she really left for the sake of her mental health as she found it so dull to film: “It was the biggest pay cheque of my life... no disrespect to people who like to cook, but watching meringue dry and being told how many different kinds there are?

“I honestly thought I was going out of my mind.

“I would ring (my wife) Deb and go, ‘I’m going crazy, I am going crazy’, because a five-hour bake, which is 20 minutes on the telly – it’s five hours long.

“I was just getting depressed. But it’s about integrity. If you have that then you can sleep.

“If you have integrity and you think, ‘I’m doing a good thing for other people, I’m being good to my friends, my family,’ that’s fine.

“There’s no money in the world that can then take that from you.”

Sandi was joined by her partner Debbie on the show, who said the host became “much more visible” in the press after signing up for the show which also made it “very stressful”.

Psychotherapist Debbie added: “Mental health is way more important than how much money you earn.”

Sandi also told the Radio Times earlier this year about her pain over ‘Bake Off’:

“I was literally standing there watching meringues dry and thinking, ‘Oh my god, my brain is atrophying’.”

Sandi continues to present the BBC quiz show ‘QI’ but her latest project is more ambitious.

She is now producing a digital ‘Mappa Mundi’ documenting women’s achievements and struggles around the world.

The project is being conducted alongside the University of Cambridge and is set to counter a lack of information about women on Wikipedia.