ALEX HORNE, author, award-winning comedian, and co-star and co-creator (alongside TIM KEY and MARK WATSON) of BBC Four’s comedy quiz show We Need Answers, has taken a completely different journey for a brand new BBC Four documentary - The Games That Time Forgot. In this one-off special, ALEX explores the world of forgotten and extinct sports, from Quintain to Cricket on Horseback.

ALEX used to love playing games. Not just football, rugby and cricket, he loved all the sports, even the made up ones, that he and his friends used to play when they were kids. Since leaving school and growing up, ALEX stopped playing sports and instead watched them on TV, but it wasn’t the same. The games seemed too commercial, over-regulated and, to be frank, boring. Surely this wasn’t what sport was all about?

Then, one afternoon, ALEX found himself reading Joseph Strutt’s Sports and Pastimes of the People of England, published at the end of the 18th century. This was more like it, these were the sports that ALEX wanted to watch; The Quintain, The Jingling Match, Hot Hasty Pudding Eating; why weren’t people playing these games any more?

But then he discovered an advert from the Kentish Gazette of 29th April 1794 for a particular game that was due to take place the following month. It read:

“A very singular game of cricket will be played on Tuesday, the 6th of May, in Linsted Park, between the Gentlemen of the Hill and the Gentlemen of the Dale, for one guinea a man. The whole to be performed on horseback. To begin at nine o'clock, and the game to be played out.”

They had played a game of cricket on horseback! Why weren’t people still playing cricket on horseback? ALEX couldn’t just sit there any longer. He had to do something about it. Not only was he desperate to see a game of cricket on horseback, he wanted to play a game of cricket on horseback.

So he did. This film follows ALEX’s attempts to uncover, recreate and revive some of the games that had been buried under the weight of modern sports. Why was horseless jousting once so popular? How do you win a smoking match? And is it really possible to play a whole game of cricket on horseback? Watch The Games That Time Forgot to find out.

The Games That Time Forgot will transmit on BBC Four, Monday 26th July at 9.00pm

For more information please contact: Lucy Plosker, Ben Nolan or Dan Lloyd. Tel: 020 7598 7222 Email: lucyp@avalonuk.com, benn@avalonuk.com, or danl@avalonuk.com