David Walliams found writing children's books left him feeling "lonely" and tearful

Speaking about his return to the BBC One show to Radio Times magazine, the 'Britain's Got Talent' judge said: "It's so much more fun than writing books - which is lonely and demoralising and you're often in tears. But I wasn't in tears writing this. I had a good time."

David - who starred in a pilot special of the series in 2015 - has admitted he has found it "quite hard" being left to work on the new programme on his own.

The funnyman - whose marriage to model Lara Stone, whom he has three-year-old son Alfred with, ended in September 2015 -explained: "I just wanted to do a sketch show. It's actually quite hard doing sketch shows on your own."

In the forthcoming Christmas special of 'Walliams and Friends' the funnyman will be joined by 'Funny Girl' actress Sheridan Smith, Harry Enfield, Miranda Richardson and Hugh Bonneville, who played the role of Mr Stink in David's 2009 text of the same name.

Speaking about the 'Downton Abbey' star, he said: "He's really funny. We've got him in the Christmas special because he'll appeal to people like my mum."

Meanwhile, David has revealed he is often overwhelmed with a number of projects to work on there's a "danger" of veering too far away from what he truly wants to do.

He explained: "The problem with being successful is that you get all these other opportunities.

"'Do you want to present a programme about this?'; 'Do you want to do some swimming for charity?' - and suddenly you're in danger of becoming a celebrity at large and you've lost sight of what it is you wanted to do.

"There's nothing like getting back to what I wanted to do in the first place - which is comedy."