David Walliams will be best known to grown-ups as an actor, presenter and comedian; especially for his partnership with Matt Lucas on the comedy sketch show Little Britain.
But to millions of children he is a very famous author; his books for have sold well over 12 million copies around the world.
He's just released Bad Dad his tenth book and he joined Jesse Mulligan in Auckland.
Bad Dad is about a boy named Frank whose dad is thrown into prison for driving the getaway car in a bank robbery. Frank hatches a daring plan to break his father out of prison for the night so they can put the stolen money back. But will the evil crime boss Mr Big stop them?
Walliams says it's a "crime thriller with a child at the centre of it."
"His dad used to be a stock car racer and had a terrible accident and lost a leg, and lost his job and had fallen on hard times. So it's also about this little family unit trying to make it in the world against the odds."
Walliams says writing doesn't come easily to him, but it did come naturally.
"I suppose it's about finding your authorial voice, because I'd been writing already - collaborating with Matt Lucas on Little Britain and lots of other shows we've made together."
His first book The Boy in a Dress broke new ground for a children's book.
"I wrote it over ten years ago and lots has changed in the last ten years. It's a story worth telling to children, it's a story about a child, it's a story about what it is to be different."
Walliams says a culture of taking offense is more prevalent now, than when he and Matt Lucas were making Little Britain.
"The audience will decide what's funny or not and whether you're going down the right path or not, but I don't believe there are a list of subjects you can tackle and a list of subjects you can't.
"I felt in Little Britain we celebrated lots of characters but there's a thing that's crept in now where people are often offended on other people's behalf. I'm offended by things but I don't feel that they should not exist because I don't like them."
He says writing is the one thing, he couldn't give up.
Photo: Supplied
"That is just such a special thing, to write a story, to be given the book, the sense of achievement when you're handed the finished book is like nothing else.
"Also I could well be a crotchety old man stuck in a shed writing books. There's no reason to ever stop that. There's a point where I may not be a judge on Britain's Got Talent anymore because I won't be as young and beautiful as I am now."
As to that other children's writer who famously ensconced himself in a shed, Walliams is an unabashed admirer.
"I'm obsessed with Roald Dahl and spent a lot of time as a child reading his books … For me he's the gold standard of children's literature."
