EXPECT audience interaction and a question-and-answer session when QI host Sandi Toksvig brings her National Trevor tour to York Barbican on January 28.

"I can't wait to get out there," says the Danish-born comedian, writer, actor, presenter, producer and political activist. "The best bit is not me talking to them; it's them talking to me. Me talking? Not so interesting. Them talking? Very interesting.

"You never quite know what's going to happen.‎ The unexpected stuff is always the most enjoyable part. The most unexpected thing that ever happened in a show took place during a Q and A in Bradford. A woman asked me what my bra size was. I couldn't remember, so she had to come up on stage and have a look."

Taking to the road from Wednesday this week, the Great British Bake Off presenter will be furnishing her audiences with fascinatingly funny facts aplenty. "I'm endlessly interested in things," she says "I think detail is terribly funny. Did you know that the glue on Israeli postage stamps is Kosher?"

Tall stories, really silly jokes and terrible baking are promised; tap-dancing, needlework and headstands are not, but National Trevor does find room for a general knowledge quiz. "I don't know if you want to win it, because then you have to come up on stage and talk to me all about your life," Sandi forewarns.

If the solo spotlight might be too much for you, you can join the rest of the York audience in taking up Sandi's invitation to help her conduct a piece of music. "I get them to conduct Beethoven's Ode To Joy," she reveals. "I chose that piece because Beethoven was deaf by the time he completed it.

"It's remarkable to want to create music when you can't hear it. On the night of the premiere, he was seen running through the streets shouting, 'Grab life by the throat!' That's what I'm saying in this show."

Grab life by the throat? "Whenever I see people wearing a T-shirt that says,'Living the Dream', ‎I think, 'You're totally not'," she says. "I want to tell them, 'If you had to buy a T-shirt saying that, it's not working'."

York Press:

"I think everybody has something to commend them," says Sandi Toksvig

Sandi, 60, may have plenty of television and radio credits to her name, such as hosting BBC Radio 4's News Quiz for a decade, but she loves performing live too, last performing in York on her My Valentine tour at the Grand Opera House in October 2013. "There is still something magical about sharing an evening out at the theatre," she says.

"When actors stand backstage before a performance, we listen to the sound of the audience. We say, 'They're a bit Monday night' or 'They're a bit Saturday matinee'. A distinct personality overtakes an entire group of people."

The theatre setting demands the audience's full concentration. "It's about getting people to put their phones away, have an engagement with the show and listen to other people laughing – hopefully – or weeping," says Sandi. "For a brief moment, we can forget about Brexit, or whatever it is we're worrying about, and lose ourselves in the show. That's good for us. We feel better."

A central theme of National Trevor is the modern-day fixation with celebrity. "The thing I'm slightly obsessed with is our whole attitude to fame. ‎There is a new trend of calling people a 'national treasure'. I don't know where it's come from, but I heartily disapprove," says Sandi.

"I think everybody has something to commend them. Everyone has a story where you go, 'Really?'. We don't get to hear their stories of extraordinary endeavours."

Explaining the show's title, Sandi says: "One day, a friend of mine was being extremely rude to me‎. A lot of my friends are: I encourage it! So in the middle of this argument, I said to her, 'Don't you know I'm a National Treasure?'.

"And she replied,'You're a National Trevor?'. Then her husband said, 'Who's been calling her 'Trevor'?'. Now they call me 'Trevor'. So that's why I gave the show this title. I'm going round the country looking for all the National Trevors. I'm celebrating people."

Trevor, sorry, Sandi muses on what her York audience might take away from National Trevor. "I hope they think that they have had a really good evening, that they're had a great laugh and that I'm much younger, taller and thinner in the flesh!" she says.

Sandi Toksvig Live!, National Trevor, York Barbican, January 28, 7.30pm. Tickets: £29.80 on 0844 854 2757, at yorkbarbican.co.uk or in person from the Barbican box office.