I’ve just realised why so many comedians hate Live at the Apollo. There are a heck of a lot of comedians out there who haven’t been asked to appear on the show. Never mind a woman scorned, there is nothing worse than a comedian who fails to get a booking on the TV series that can make you a household name. 

I’ve had a pop at the series myself as well in the past, but watching the first episode of the new six-part run on Wednesday night I decided that it is ultimately a good thing for comedy. It is easy to dismiss it and say that it plays safe, simply cramming as many laughs as possible into 30 minutes. Some say that it harms club comedy, with fans only wanting to see TV acts. But, let’s get down to the proverbial brass tacks, it champions stand-up comedy, a genre that I truly love. That's surely good, isn't it?

The first show was a pretty impressive statement of intent. Sarah Millican was the household name host, delivering her cuddly-yet-crude apercus ("whenever I'm on the phone to me mam it always makes me need a poo"), Joe Lycett was the new kid in town and Russell Kane raced around the stage like a Duracell Bunny on Sunny Delight or some other mash-up of two very fast cliched things.

All delivered the goods. I thought this was a particularly good showcase for Lycett, who is pretty much a mainstream game show host-in-waiting. He did his waspish banter about being bisexual ("I'm an absolute lad") and stories about being mugged by tiny kids and getting a parking ticket in Birmingham. The audience loved him. Job done. It wasn’t just good editing or using clips of the Micky Flanagan crowd laughing from an old episode of Michael McIntyre’s Comedy Roadshow.

Russell Kane is pretty well known now through his BBC3 work, but this was a great high profile slot for him too, and a chance to demonstrate his comedy chops on a big stage. He didn't disappoint with an intelligent, incisive dissection of the stereotypical sexually repressed but "let's go fricking mental" British psyche that should have had the audience squirming with self-recognition, except that they were too busy laughing to squirm. 

I won’t say too much about Sarah Millican here because I’m going to post a review of her new live DVD shortly, but needless to say she was a true crowdpleaser. Twitter did alert me to the fact that there are only three women in the current series (click here for full-line-up) and that number could be higher. I had an interesting Twitter chat with someone wondering if Bridget Christie had been approached and would she do it if she was? Answer? I think probably not, but I think probably yes if she was.

But apart from the fact that there should be more women, say, one a week – and obviously the fact that you’ll never see Daniel Kitson compering on Live at the Apollo – the series is hard to fault. Unless you are a comic still waiting for your booking on it.

Live at the Apollo is on BBC1, Wednesdays.