David Walliams rules himself out of Strictly Come Dancing

He backtracked on his earlier statement after struggling to master a dance routine for his upcoming Sky1 comedy Cinderella: After Ever After.

The hour-long family special takes a comedic look at what happened to Cinderella (Sian Gibson) and Prince Charming (Walliams) after the events of their classic fairytale romance.

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After learning an elaborate routine for a scene at their wedding reception, Walliams said: "I realised I am one of the world's worst dancers. We had a choreographer who helped me, and she said there's only two people who are worse dancers than you. That's Pierce Brosnan and Colin Firth. Not bad company actually!

"People always say, oh when are you going to do Strictly? Well, I found out the answer is never. I am so hopeless at dancing and it took me so long to even get to that, which was pretty pathetic. But it was just meant to be a spoof on - you know when you go to a wedding, people do that little routine, you know.

"But goodness me, we wrote it in, you go 'oh they dance to MC Hammer'. Very easy to write that as a stage direction... weeks and months of having dance lessons and still no idea how to do it."

Speaking on The Jonathan Ross Show last year, Walliams said that he would like to join Strictly as a way to lose weight, but also so that he could dance with veteran professional Anton Du Beke.

Cinderella: After Ever After also stars Sir Tom Courtenay (King of Thieves) and Celia Imrie (Bridget Jones's Baby).

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The special will air over the Christmas period on Sky1.