AI cant write comedy, says SNL star Tina Fey

Saturday Night Live star Tina Fey said she is not worried about artificial intelligence (AI) taking over from comedy writers.

"AI can do all sorts of other terrifying things, like writing music but so far, its unable to be funny," she told the audience on the last day of the Edinburgh TV Festival.

The American actress and comedian broke into comedy as part of the Chicago-based improvisational comedy group The Second City, before going on to star in the NBC sketch comedy show.

One of her most famous roles was as US vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin in the run up to the 2008 election.

At the time she had left the show but was asked to return.

Fey said: "I wasnt sure. I know I looked a little like her but I also knew someone like Kristen Wigg could have done with ease."

But for six weeks, it made her famous.

She added: "So many people watched it and recognised me. Theyd come up to me in the street.

"A French newspaper even ran a picture of me and Amy Poehler as Hillary Clinton, thinking we were the real people.

"At the end of it all, it started to get a little scary, and then it piqued when Sarah Palin appeared on the show."

In April it was announced that the UK would launch its own version of the long running sketch show, produced by the US shows creator Lorne Michaels.

Graham Norton, who shared the festival stage with Fey, said he didnt believe that British writers would stay up all night on a Tuesday, as they do in the US, to finish scripts in time for the Wednesday read through.

But Fey said: "Heres a dirty secret. You dont have to do it that way. You could start in the morning."

Fey, who created 30 Rock, also revealed former Prime Minister David Cameron had wanted to speak to her about British shows while he was in power.

She recalled: "After 30 Rock ended, like a year or two later, I was way out in Brooklyn working on this show called Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.

"I was very happy to take a break from being on camera, jeans and dirty hair every day.

"And I got this call from someone at NBC that said if you could come into Rockefeller Centre, David Cameron is here and has requested to meet you.

"He was the current prime minister. Turned out all it was, was he wanted to meet me and say Hi."

Fay said Cameron invited her to the UK but she didnt take up the offer.

She continued: "He was like Would you ever be willing to come and meet with some of our incredibly talented British show writers? I think that our television that we make is one of our greatest exports, its something we do beautifully, and could you convince them to make hundreds of episodes?

"And I was like I cannot, because we all want to do it the way they do it, be Ricky Gervais and be like Remember that time I made 12 half-hours. Thats the lifestyle."

Meanwhile, Fey described her latest show, The Four Seasons - which is based on a 1981 film - as "an exercise in restraint".

She added: "I had to keep saying to the other writers, when a character meets another person, they have to be normal, not outrageous."

The second season of the show is now in production and she said her own experience of mid-life offered her plenty of ideas.

Fey said: "Im 55, and stuff can happen at that age, and some of it is terrible."

She also told the festival how she grew up with British television classics like Monty Python and Benny Hill.

And when asked to name her favourite shows of the last 50 years, Fey nominated Absolutely Fabulous and I May Destroy You.

The comedian was asked for her favourite Scottish film by a member of the audience and - despite this being her first visit to the country - confidently answered Local Hero.

Fey also revealed she was keen to return to the UK to tour The Restless Leg, the show she created with Amy Poehler about their 30-year friendship.