Stewart Lee's Alternative Comedy Experience offers 25 minutes of understated joy over on Comedy Central. Now three episodes into its second series, it's a grottier, grimier Live At The Apollo, without the necessary blockbuster blandness of John Bishop or Michael McIntyre.

Lee talks to comedians about their comedy - more interesting than it sounds, because of the calibre of people involved - which is then interspersed with short excerpts from stand-up sets, filmed at Edinburgh's tiny pub-like venue The Stand, giving it a brilliantly raucous, ramshackle feel.

Tuesday's episode saw Susan Calman, Josie Long, Kevin Eldon and David O'Doherty performing, with O'Doherty - a particular delight. If you've ever wondered how someone can do witty nostalgia about long-dead technology without sounding like a Buzzfeed list, then track O'Doherty's set down as a matter of urgency.

Review: David O'Doherty Will Try to Fix Everything

Expanding on the darker tone exhibited in his preceding 'break-up' show, Irish Casio king David O'Doherty's new offering covers happiness, hope, and in all but name, depression.

Acts for Greenwich Comedy Festival 2013 revealed

Alexei Sayle, Mark Watson and David O'Doherty will be headline acts in this year's Greenwich Comedy Festival, it has been announced.

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What are people chattering about at the world's largest arts festival? For our latest dip in the choppy waters of the Edinburgh Festival reaction online, Nick Mitchell covers three hot shows: David O'Doherty, Bo Burnham and Blam!

Audio: Secret Comedy Podcast 2013, episode 1

Ed Byrne hosts the first of Amnesty's Secret Comedy Podcasts recorded live at this year's Edinburgh festival with Jenny Eclair, Marcus Brigstocke and Gary Delaney. Plus we've got stand up from the amazing Aisling Bea, and David O'Doherty with an inspiring (and factually accurate) song about a unique method of relaxing on a bike.

Me, David O'Doherty, and a jewellery shop in Edinburgh

It's a fact universally acknowledged that Mondays are terrible, so it came as a bit of surprise to end mine sitting on the floor of a funky jewellery shop on Edinburgh's Candlemaker Row enjoying an impromptu performance by my third favourite comedian, David O'Doherty.

The Alternative Comedy Experience made an excellent point about its subject - if only it were a little bit funnier.

When did 'alternative' become a dirty word in comedy circles? Early on in The Alternative Comedy Experience (Comedy Central), Stewart Lee noted that 'for an entire generation of people, alternative comedy is a pejorative term', which led to a cracking definition of what the term alternative comedy actually means: 'Every second joke is funny.'

The tongue was firmly in cheek but there's a serious mission behind Lee's latest comedy caper. Disgruntled by the relentless commodification of comedy - the stadium tours, the DVDs, the rent-a-gob TV panel shows - Lee is after giving a chance to comedians with an edge to them. Let's kick Michael Mcintyre and the pack of mainstream comics who dominate TV's comedy schedules into touch.

It's a noble cause but, of course, The Alternative Comedy Experience, which consists of stand-up highlights from an Edinburgh club, is tucked away late at night on a minority channel. No scaring of the horses there, but it's a start. Comedy, like rock music in 1976, has become safe and complacent, the one-time young guns suckered into safety by money. You can scarcely blame them, but I will anyway.

My only wish is that it had been a bit funnier. Issy Suttie, Peep Show's Dobbie, and token crazy German Henning Wehn, seemed like safe, first-episode choices when here was a chance to really roam around comedy's outer fringes. David O'Doherty was the pick of the unfamiliar faces, coming up with the gag of the night which started with the economic crisis and ended with badminton. But it wasn't nearly enough.

For the most part, Lee's off-stage chats with the comedians easily eclipsed anything that had gone down on stage, prompting the idea that Lee should have a stab at being an alternative chat show host. That would be one with no guests.

Radio Times review

The popular image of stand-up nowadays is of arena tours, massive-selling DVDs and appearances on TV panel shows. But Stewart Lee wants to wrest what is known as "alternative comedy" away from the pejorative backwater where it's been languishing. In truth, that means a series of lower-profile - though very funny - comedians on stage at the Stand in Edinburgh. Henning Wehn, Isy Suttie, Boothby Graffoe, David Kay, David O'Doherty and Glenn Wool are in the line-up - and the conversations with Lee are bite-sized gems.

Is it the recession? The Tories? The procession of fresh-faced ob-coms filling the O2 with their jaunty musings on social-media etiquette and supermarket self-service checkouts? Who knows. But there's little doubt that what older readers will recognise as alternative comedy is undergoing a mini-renaissance. Alexei Sayle has returned to stand-up and this new series sees Stewart Lee, who has flown the flag through alt.com's fallow years, introducing comedy from The Stand in Edinburgh. It's simultaneously refreshing and frustrating.

Tonight's opener features Isy Suttie, David Kay, Boothby Graffoe, Henning Wehn, Glenn Wool and David O'Doherty. But not for very long: at half an hour, and with ads and six comedians per show, it means approximately one and a half gags each - although the same half-dozen will be returning for more across the 12-part series, which showcases a total of 20 stand-ups. It's great to see more marginal comic turns getting exposure, but frustrating that we aren't allowed to see them in full flow, at least tonight.

Review: Seize the David O'Doherty - Newcastle Stand

They're minor qualms, though, in what is by and large a decent show. David O'Doherty's not going to change your life, but for a couple of hours at least he'll make it that little bit better.