Miranda Hart explains why she 'didn't enjoy' making her hit sitcom and reveals 'sadness' of the time

Miranda Hart "didn't really enjoy" making her hit sitcom.

The 51-year-old comedienne found huge success when she wrote and starred in her eponymous series for the BBC in the late 2000s but she had become so swamped by chronic illness that came about as a result of the Lyme's disease she contracted as a teenager that she "didn't have the energy" to find joy in that time.

Speaking on ITV's 'This Morning', she said: "By then, sadly, I'd got used to feeling rough and thinking that I just had to keep going. I was used to being really strong and brave and keep it going.

"But the sadness for me was that I didn't really enjoy it. I used to go to rehearsals and look at a glass of water and think 'I just don't have the energy'.

"I was sad that I didn't really enjoy it. But I managed it.

"When you're just used to keep on keeping on whether that's with chronic illness or relationships or whatever, you get into that, I suppose quite English way, of [not saying anything]. You get stuck."

The former 'Call the Midwife' star - who recently announced that she had married surveyor Richard Fairs, 60, in July 2023 - took a almost a decade out of the spotlight to deal with her health issues and has now put pen to paper in the form of her new memoir 'I Haven't Been Entirely Honest with You' where she reflects on how she has learned to live with her chronic illness.

She said: The story is a decade of not, all fun, there was my difficult time in a book and so I had a little weep. I started resrarhicing for myself when I couldn't get a diagnosis, I collapsed on the floor with fatigue and wasn't getting any answers. I had to research and find out what was actually true.

"I found the answers on how to live with chronic illness. Once I researched that for myself, I felt that I couldn't not share this.

"I met my now-husband and thought, 'Oh I've got to put a bit of the love story in it as well'!"