Danger. Dano. Shaolin. Open Mike Tyson. Bruce Dane. The Dark Mike. Just several of the soubriquets that tortured pun enthusiast Dane Baptiste has been introduced with and could have chosen to name his latest Fringe show: instead, he went with Bapsquire. ‘It’s a nickname that my university friends came up with,’ the stand-up explains. ‘We all struggled to get employment after graduating because we didn’t have any nepotistic connections. And incidentally, all of my friends were either Gujarati or Arab. We joked about anglicising our names to appear more attractive to potential employers.’

Returning to the Fringe for the first time in five years, the 41-year-old is revisiting his youth for the last time on stage as he prepares for the birth of his first child in December. Still, he’s not going gently into those sleepless nights. He’s just released The Chocolate Chip, his previous and very polemical show, as a YouTube special. Although Baptiste says Bapsquire is not as explicit or as angry, ‘it’s still the classic Dane that people know and appreciate my comedy for.’

Since becoming the first Black solo British Best Newcomer nominee of the Edinburgh Comedy Awards in 2014, it’s fair to say that Baptiste has enjoyed a love/hate relationship with the Fringe. ‘The Festival, in general, is discriminatory to people of a certain extraction,’ he says. ‘And with the obligations I have in my life now, where it’s very hard to justify the outlay, coupled with the sanitation strike of last year (which is my worst nightmare), it’s basically made me re-evaluate the necessity of going. Especially when I’ve seen so many acts that no longer have to follow that trajectory in order to realise success.’ Baptiste does acknowledge that he’s received support from critics and audiences at the Fringe. ‘But most creatives have limited resources to achieve their potential and I don’t think that’s considered by Edinburgh’s ignorant, elitist, critical and managerial class. Plus, the profiteering landlords and other institutions making money off people’s dreams: that’s the hate part for me.’

Baptiste is also frustrated yet philosophical that neither his 2021 satirical sketch pilot Bamous or his 2016 online sitcom SunnyD were picked up by the BBC for a full series, having received only limited promotion. ‘Sometimes, you have to be prepared to plant trees for shade that you won’t necessarily enjoy,’ he observes. ‘If Sunny D had come out in 2020, as the first Black British sitcom on the BBC in 25 years, it would have got a lot more fanfare. And I would probably have been better able to promote it through social media. But you shouldn’t use recognition as your motivation to create. Besides, these things can happen slowly. If you make something that is timeless, and of a certain quality, people will get to it in the end, even if I may not be around to see it myself.’

He calls Bapsquire ‘a love letter to my unborn child’, but just don’t call it political comedy. ‘It only appears that way,’ Baptiste maintains, ‘because people are weaned on this collective ideology of keeping calm and carrying on. As an observational comedian, with the corruption and cronyism within our bipartisan political system, if you’re not making observations on that then you’re not paying attention. What I say might appear incendiary because, these days, people tend to try to avoid reacting to things. I’m just aware of the implications of ignoring or not addressing corruption.’

Dane Baptiste: Bapsquire, Monkey Barrel The Hive, 14–27 August, 4.15pm.