STAND-UP comedian Stewart Lee returned to the city last night to talk to students at his former Oxford University college.

He studied English at St Edmund Hall between 1986 and 1989 and was made an Honorary Fellow of the college earlier this year.

Mr Lee, along with award-winning comic book writer and former English student Dan Abnett, returned yesterday to discuss writing.

Mr Lee said: “It is nice to come back for a reason because the experience of coming here was such a sort of overwhelming, life-changing privilege. If I came back at any point in the last 20 years I might have been a bit overcome by it.”

He said the structure in place 30 years ago for writers was no longer there and students were also being hit with £30,000 debts from university, turning writing into a hobby rather than a career.

But asked what advice he would give to aspiring writers, he said: “Give up and let the old blokes already doing it get more work.”

The talks, under the heading Writing Beyond the Written Word, were part of extra-curricular creative writing activities at St Edmund Hall.