Dane Baptiste: Reasonable Doubts

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Dane Baptiste begins his show with a plethora of quick-fire race jokes—each better and just as ridiculously offensive as the last—but ensures no one is actually offended by keeping everyone too busy laughing. He manages to make obvious jokes funny, playing on the irony but keeping the quality and upping the stakes each time. A genuinely fresh approach to an ancient subject matter works well and the audience is instantly on board.

He then ploughs into thought-provoking material and leaves the offensive behind – instead, he is almost matter-of-fact. He rolls out simple statements that on their own are innocuous but accumulated become powerful and persuasive. The jokes are almost an afterthought. Throughout, Baptiste manages to avoid sounding preachy, even during the religious bits. He has some interesting points to make; sensible ones. It almost feels coincidental that they are so funny; some of them really shouldn’t be. He allows everyone to forget to feel guilty about laughing as he compares the ludicrous nature of war to celebrity culture.

Baptiste admits to overthinking some things but it is definitely to his credit – he shares his thoughts openly and without fear of being judged, and even does a bit of judging himself along the way. He delivers high-end, absorbing comedy without holding back on the laughs. He gets big ones, but shrugs them off and proceeds to hammer home his points, allowing each line to sit for just long enough before hitting it again, making sure he killed it.