Danny Baker gets standing ovation in first show since being fired from BBC over royal baby tweet

‘You wouldn’t believe how I was feeling 20 minutes ago but I’m so pleased so let’s do this,’ the comedian said at the start of his show

Danny Baker performed his first live show since his tweet about the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s baby, which resulted in the DJ losing his job.

Baker was sacked from BBC Radio 5 Live after sharing a photograph featuring a chimpanzee alongside the caption: “Royal baby leaves hospital”.

The tweet was posted on Wednesday, the same day Harry and Meghan appeared for the first time in public with their newborn son, Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor.

Arriving onstage to a warm reception, Baker told the audience at Nottingham’s Theatre Royal: “I genuinely didn’t know what the atmosphere would be like tonight. But equally, if anyone does want to rush the stage, I’m a Millwall fan with a snooker cue. You wouldn’t believe how I was feeling 20 minutes ago but I’m so pleased so let’s do this.”

He added: “When life deals you lemons, you chuck them at people calling you a racist.”

He joked that his pacing up and down the stage was not a way of trying to “get away from potential Lee Harvey Oswalds”.

He continued that his show would “ironically” be about the time his “career... had hit a brick wall.” He said: “Topically, here we are again. That’s the last time I’m going to mention it. That’s the whole point of tonight. It’s the most unlikely tower, and I’m stuck in it. It should never have happened.”

Opening the second half of the show, Baker said: “I’ve never been a sentimental sort. But I’m numb with gratitude tonight, I caught my wife in the break and you reduced her to a pile of tears.”

At the end, he said: “I do want to say this and I’m not milking it but it’s been one of the best nights of my career tonight. It really has.” Baker received a standing ovation as he made his way off stage.

Police have launched an investigation into Baker’s tweet. “An allegation has been received by the Metropolitan Police Service on Thursday May 9 in relation to a tweet published on May 8,” the Met said.

On Friday, Baker said he wanted to “formally apologise for the outrage I caused” following “one of the worst days of my life”.

He said: “I chose the wrong photo to illustrate a joke. Disastrously so. In attempting to lampoon privilege and the news cycle I went to a file of goofy pictures and saw the chimp dressed as a Lord and thought, ‘That’s the one!’”

“Had I kept searching I might have chosen General Tom Thumb or even a baby in a crown. But I didn’t. God knows I wish had.”