His new material includes the annoying excesses of text-message emoticons, but David O'Doherty is still the most reliably charming dispenser of smiley faces around.

Armed with his Yamaha PSS 260 (and new batteries), his cheesy melodies, disarming verses and unswerving commitment to low-wattage whimsy are an antidote to any comedian trading on shock value. And his advice on how to perform an over-elaborate practical joke on airport security (smuggling dog biscuits, internally, on a flight from Bolivia to Amsterdam) is the only gag that moved me to tears.

Josie Long, who personally approved the 70 audience members for her Invitation Gig, is easily the most unusually gentle act on the bill, delivering her offbeat routines with a heartfelt glow of artlessness. She riffs on children's TV shows, she hauls herself up for delivering anything as conventional as a one-liner ("I feel like a Renaissance woman; in that I'm a little overweight and like lying around in the nude."). She even draws sea-scenes on her own tummy. It's all rather appealing, but you're not quite sure whether to laugh or buy her an ice cream.

He may be more frenetic than a firecracker, gags wheeling and spinning from his mind faster than you can catch them, but Russell Howard is yet another soldier of light. It's not for nothing that even at the age of 28, he is given to nostalgic recollections from his childhood: the tearaway misbehaviour and dress-up escapism of recent youth provides most of his material. That and sandwiches.

It just goes to show that innocence and comedy aren't mutually exclusive; that gags can be more childlike than childish.