The Time Bandits are six small, amazing creatures. Timeless yet always late, ageless yet never young, capable of inter-galactic, inter-cosmic travel yet unable to tie their own shoelaces. All we know for certain is that when the world was created they ran the Trees and Small Shrubs Department. After designing a particularly rude and offensive tree they were demoted to the Repairs Department. Here they discovered tiny holes in the fabric of time and space. Making a map of the Time Holes, and squeezing through one of them, they disappeared from the face of history.

Millions of years later the Time Bandits reappear in an English schoolboy's bedroom, turning his ordinary, boring life into an extraordinary wild race in and out of ten centuries. Pursued from one side by The Supreme Being and lured towards death and disaster by Evil Himself, they manage to meet Robin Hood, Napoleon, Greek heroes, ogres and legendary beasts, before very nearly destroying both themselves and the world too. With laughter and dizzy success, abject failure and abject terror, their incredible adventures are all the dreams you've ever had - and not just the good ones.