Sandi Toksvig

Oh, Sandi!

Looking forward to this year and showing her son around the city, Sandi Toksvig has a lot of happy memories of the Festivals.

Margaret (Jessica Hynes) sends Emmeline Pankhurst a "comical" poem, which prompts a visit from the suffragette leader, despite Pankhurst (Sandi Toksvig) concurring with Helen (Rebecca Front) that the poem is "not strictly speaking comical". Margaret claims that "it gets funnier", and Hynes here could almost be describing her own sitcom: this final episode is the best, with the group trying to impress their guest with a talent showcase, and Helen revealing the real reason behind her opposition to the cause.

This Suffragette comedy completes its short run. The fight for votes for women has only ever been a peg on which to hang an unthreatening, if rather well executed, 2D sitcom staffed with charming bumblers. It feels as if it's really about Suffragettes much less than, say, the stylistically similar Dad's Army was subtly and profoundly about the Second World War.

Not that "this isn't as good as Dad's Army" is any sort of criticism, but the rousing finale is flat and unearned after just three episodes. Before that, though, there's an injection of brio from Sandi Toksvig, delivering a riotous turn as Emmeline Pankhurst herself.

The News Quiz (Radio 4, 6.30pm) returns. I know there are people who will leap with joy at this news. Once I would have been among them. No longer. Even though producer Sam Bryant has brought back journalists (tonight Daniel Finkelstein of The Times) to pit wits against comedians Roisin Conaty, Phill Jupitus and Jeremy Hardy, the programme has grown so much coarser with the years that even Sandi Toksvig seems challenged when trying to enliven the murky script.

Rory Bremner & Sandi Toksvig head new C4 daytime lineup

Rory Bremner and Sandi Toksvig are to present new game shows on Channel 4.

Video: Sandi Toksvig on her new book and her play

Sandi Toksvig tells us about her new novel Valentine Grey and a play she has written called Bully Boy.

The book looks at how the character of Valentine Grey, goes to South Africa disguised as a man to fight in the Boer War.

Sandi says it is a classic story of a woman constrained by Victorian society.

Sandi has also written her own play about post-war trauma called Bully Boy.

The book Valentine Grey is out now and Bully Boy is on at St James Theatre in the West End until Saturday.

Video: Toksvig claims she was groped while broadcasting

Comedian Sandi Toksvig says she was groped by a "famous individual" while she was broadcasting in the 1980s.

The Secret World (Radio 4, Tuesdays) provides none of them. Here's a comedy show that, through the employment of mimics, invites us to imagine what happens in the private lives of famous people. Sean Connery has a baking competition with James Gandolfini of The Sopranos, William Hague tries to entertain Angela Merkel in the absence of Prime Minister Cameron, Nick Clegg successively telephones Sandi Toksvig, Miranda Hart and Jo Brand, trying (always in vain) to get them to come to a party. It sounds stale, as if every situation has been chosen to fit the voices available rather than for any intrinsic wit.

Sandi Toksvig: 'I don't understand boredom'

Comedian, playwright, novelist, TV personality: Sandi Toksvig is a one-woman cottage industry. She talks about coming out, panel shows and why she's turned her back on the Lib-Dems.

Sandi Toksvig: 'I don't understand boredom'

Comedian, playwright, novelist, TV personality: Sandi Toksvig is a one-woman cottage industry.