Frank Skinner has changed. The lairy, sweary comedian at the forefront of 1990s “new lad” culture now talks about the benefits of marriage counselling, arranges his tour dates around his “family commitments” and presents art programmes with Joan Bakewell, don’tcha know.

It’s partly the result of late fatherhood – his son Buzz is just over a year old and, like all new parents, he’s dazed and dazzled – and partly an inevitable maturing. He’s been in comedy for 27 years now and, as he points out, everyone changes in 27 years.

But his character was never quite as one-dimensional as the tabloids made out, he says. In early interviews he would point out his four A-levels and double English degrees.

“But it was never mentioned in print. I don’t think people want complex comedians. They want someone they can get a grasp on and because I liked football and talked about sex a lot I was edited into this laddish character.”

He’s not complaining, of course. It’s a character that’s served him well, all the way through the 1991 Perrier win, his number one Euro ’96 hit song Three Lions with David Baddiel, numerous arena tours, an autobiography and various high-profile TV chat shows. It’s served him so well, in fact, that his accountant said recently there was no need for him to work again.

Yet instead of enjoying the fruits of his labour the 55-year-old has embarked on a nationwide tour of new show Man In A Suit, including a three-week run at that most gruelling of performance events, the Edinburgh Fringe.

Why? “I like the romance of being a stand-up,” he shrugs. “There’s very little romance about doing a TV show. When I leave a gig with my collar turned up and step on to the tour bus I feel like Lenny Bruce. When I leave a TV studio with my collar turned up I feel like Dale Winton.

I think it’s a heroic job in a way other stuff just isn’t.”

Getting into comedy changed him from “a loser to a winner”, he says. Growing up in the West Midlands suburb of Oldbury, he was expelled from school at 16 and seemed set for an uneventful career as a labourer in the local foundry.

But he got himself to night school to sit his A-levels and then to university (where he completed that first English degree) and after some early success doing impersonations at open mic nights, made a trip to the 1987 Edinburgh Fringe whereupon he vowed to become a comedian.

The work ethic he’d picked up from his dad served him well and a few years later Skinner had taken home the prestigious Perrier award.

“It was super exciting,”

he says of his sudden fame.

“I went to every do I was invited to. I just loved it. I’d never been in a social whirl before, only a drink-induced one.”

Although he later gave up the booze (Skinner’s much-publicised alcoholism was certainly not helped by the steady stream of parties and premieres) and rediscovered his Catholic faith (more on that later), comedy has remained a constant throughout his life. This year’s return to Edinburgh is him paying his respects, he says. “Stand-up will always feel significant to me and I will always feel a responsibility to keep worshipping at its altar.”

But ask him what he’s most proud of achieving in a career spanning nearly 30 years and it’s not the gongs, or the sell-out tours or even the number one hit, but being invited to be president of the Samuel Johnson Society. He had studied the English writer and essayist for his MA and when the invitation came in was asked to produce an academic paper for the society. “I really worked on it.

It was like being at university again and I’m genuinely proud to have become president.”

There aren’t many comics as successful as Skinner who can also list presidency of an academic society on their CV, but then he’s used to being something of an anomaly.

When he started his career it was the late 1980s – the height of the alternative comedy scene led by Ben Elton, Jo Brand, Arthur Smith and others. “It was very, ‘Yah, yah Nicaragua’ – comedy that got applause rather than laughs. I felt completely out of place.”

It wasn’t that he had opposing political views.

“I just didn’t have political views.” Instead, he made old-fashioned gags about football, women, sex. “But I think I was lucky to arrive at a time when people were ready for some jokes.”

These days, he feels comedians can have a foot in both camps, or, as he puts it, “You can be president of the Samuel Johnson Society and tell a knob joke”.

Still, he remains slightly at odds with the rest of the comedy fraternity simply for being a practising Catholic in a largely atheist industry.

He rediscovered his faith at 29 and has spoken out on the subject many times since yet he remains reluctant to make it part of his shows. He recalls an early gig with Eddie Izzard where the surrealist comedian shared his plans to come out as a transvestite on stage.

“He suggested I should talk about being a Roman Catholic too but I told him I thought people were more likely to accept transvesticism. Generally people seem to find faith a rather awkward and embarassing topic. I’d quite like to do a show about it but I just don’t think people would go for it.”

Anyway, his attentions are elsewhere at present, as he and his girlfriend Cath Mason adapt to being parents for the first time. He’s clearly besotted with his son; does he wish he’d done it all earlier?

“I wish me and my girlfriend had stopped arguing earlier! I know people romanticise volatile relationships but it’s very wearing and you don’t feel you can settle down or bring a child into that. We got together in 2000 and it took until 2007 for us to stop arguing – and that was mainly the result of having couple counselling.” Becoming a father is, he says, the biggest thing he’s ever done – “a bigger turnaround than fame. It’s wonderful.”

Clearly this is a new Frank Skinner. So it isn’t entirely surprising when he begins singing the praises of new best friend and veteran broadcaster Joan Bakewell, 81. The pair met when presenting Sky’s Portrait Artist of the Year competition – “I think I was brought in to dumb it down” – and hit it off. “I thought she’d look down on me but she was just so accepting. What frightens me about getting old is that locking down of your opinions, whereas Joan is constantly asking questions and interested in other people. I’d love to be like her when I’m that age.”

It’s a statement one can’t imagine passing Skinner’s lips 20 years ago. “I know. Twenty years ago I probably fancied Joan Bakewell. Now I want to be her.”