'Pointless' host Alexander Armstrong is recording a new album.

Alexander Armstrong

Alexander Armstrong

The 46-year-old presenter-and-actor dropped his debut LP 'A Year of Songs' late last year and enjoyed the process so much that he's now back in the studio slaving over new music.

Speaking to BANG Showbiz, he said: "I have got an album coming out later this year. We are recording it at the moment and I am so pleased with it. We are doing something entirely original with cross-over music (the posh name for popular classical). I've never heard anything like what we've made so far and I can't wait to be able to play it to a wider audience."

And when he's not in the recording studio, Armstrong likes to get stuck in to croquet as his great-great grandfather Joe Jaques founded the modern twist of the sport.

Armstrong loves croquet so much he has helped launch the Pimm's Cider Extreme Croquet Cup in a bid to reinvigorate the quintessentially British game of croquet, in the year in which both the sport and the brand celebrate their 165th anniversary.

A series of games have been played on the downhill slopes of The White Cliffs of Dover, a rocking boat deck on The Thames (Tattershall Castle) and at jaw-dropping heights at The View from the Shard and the public can go to Theviewfromtheshard.com to book a game at The Shard in London.

Discussing his love of lawn game, he said: "I joke about croquet but quite genuinely it is one of my favourite sports. I suppose it's closest to snooker or golf in terms of its tactics.

"It seems incredibly straight-forward (much as tennis or chess might seem like a monotonous business on paper) but it's full of nuance, strategy and skill. It deserves a proper leg-up because we would lose an elegant, properly exciting, British sport if it were allowed to fade into extinction.

"Oh and did I mention the violence? I know of no other game that brings on such fury and passion."