A One Mann’s Movies review of “Time Travel is Dangerous” (2025).
My daughter Jenn is an avid searcher of Charity Shop bargains (or “chazzers” as she calls them). Under the pseudonym of “Susie” she has a very successful and entertaining Instagram page here charting her successes and failures. I mention this, because chazzers are at the innovative heart of the story of “Time Travel is Dangerous”, a new British comedy film hitting cinemas this Friday (March 28th 2025). And great fun it is too.
Bob the Movie Man Rating:
“Time Travel is Dangerous” Plot:
Ruth (Ruth Syratt) and Megan (Megan Stevenson) (pronounced ‘Mee-gan’) are two girls grifting a living by running a charity shop in Muswell Hill despite the best efforts of their landlord Rick (Simon Killick) to shut them down and build luxury flats on the site. But the girls discover a time machine by the bins and use it to retrieve artefacts from history to sell in their chazzer. But time travel is dangerous and there’s trouble ahead as their dodgy commercial activities open up a multi-dimensional crack to the ‘Unreason’.
Certification:
UK: 15; US: NR. (From the BBFC web site: “Strong language”.)
Talent:
Starring: Ruth Syratt, Megan Stevenson, Simon Killick, Stephen Fry, Sophie Thompson, Brian Blessed, Mark Heap, Jane Horrocks, Laura Aikman, Guy Henry, Johnny Vegas, Brian Bovell, Kiell Smith-Bynoe, Alex Horne.
Directed by: Chris Reading.
Written by: Chris Reading, Anna-Elizabeth Shakespeare & Hillary Shakespeare. (Based on a story by Chris Reading & Ruth Syratt).
Running Time: 1h 39m.
“Time Travel is Dangerous” Summary:
Positives:
- Some laugh-out-loud comedy material.
- A silly, low-budget comedy crowdpleaser that is uniquely British.
- Newcomers Ruth Syratt and Megan Stevenson impress… names to watch.
- BRILLIANT social media marketing!
Negatives:
- The mock-documentary style is somewhat inconsistent.
- Some will no doubt find the comedy too silly for their tastes.
Review of “Time Travel is Dangerous”:
The Office meets Back to the Future via The Hitchhikers Guide.
The film is done in a mockumentary fashion starting with a droll voiceover by the legend that is Stephen Fry, introducing us to Ruth, Megan and their ‘Cha Cha Cha’ shop. Fry keeps popping back at various points in a manner reminding me of the late, great Peter Jones’s narration on The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. In a delightfully matter-of-fact way, the girls introduce their ‘secret’ time machine. (“The machines are secret really, yeah. And nobody knows we’re using it. Apart from you guys,obviously” (pointing at the documentary crew)…. LOL). The time machine is a wonderfully souped up dodgem car! (It amused me, the thought of the film crew lugging the dodgem car around the English countryside for the required shots!).
There is great fun to be had in the girls zipping through time to visit (and steal!) different items from different eras (and once, a cat!) to then sell on. The use becomes dangerously second nature and flippant though when Ruth goes back a few years for a takeaway from the local “because they used to taste better then”!
The script isn’t bloody Shakespeare!
Well, actually, this time it is… it’s penned by the Shakespeare sisters, Anna-Elizabeth and Hillary, together with director Chris Reading. And very funny it is in places. Some of the dry exchanges between Megan and Ruth are great. I particularly liked this one:
Megan: You just can’t put a price on nostalgia.
Ruth: No.
Megan: We do though.
Ruth: Yeah, we do. It pays the rent.
The script gets sillier and sillier as we dive into the past of Ralph (Kiell Smith-Bynoe), Robert (Johnny Vegas) and Valerie (Laura Aikman, most famous now as the hated Sonia in “Gavin and Stacey”). Via VHS tape, they present an old TV show called “The Future Today”, with Robert (Johnny Vegas) as “Botty”, the dodgy robot. Spring forward to the present day and Ralph (now Brian Bovell) and Valerie (now Sophie Thompson) are members of an inventor’s club run by the power-crazed Martin Onions (Guy Henry) and Robert (still Vegas) is a bit of a recluse, still hoarding his Botty merchandise!
Madness lies within.
You begin to question your sanity when we enter the ‘Unreason’: a place beyond space and time where we meet stranded individuals, including a regency dandy (Mark Heap) and ‘the aviator’ (Jane Horrocks). They play a nonsensical but ridiculously complicated game (like “Mornington Crescent”!) to stop the boredom from driving them mad with the aviator constantly screaming “What a game. What a game. Isn’t this fun?!”. A sentient octopus (voiced by Brian Blessed) is also there to frighten new arrivals. To keep them musically entertained, Alex Horne and his Horne Section are also stranded there!
Syratt and Stevenson impress.
Ruth Syratt and Megan Stevenson both impress in their debut feature films. It’s actually quite difficult to work out where this pair came from, since the social media surrounding this film is so impressive that they actually DO seem to own the business Cha Cha Cha at 20 -22 Avenue Mews, Muswell Hill and the web site seems to suggest that they have owned and run it as a Chazzer since 2004. (Not that I can find an entry for the company in Muswell Hill at Companies House!). But look at the location on Google Streetview and you can see that it really is (or was) a vintage goods shop going all the way back to Streetview’s first picture in 2009. I’m so fucking confused!! It makes me think there REALLY is a time travelling dodgem car hidden behind those double-doors!
Clever use of money.
You have to hand it to the team behind this film that they have used their meagre budget – the interweb reports it to be $1m – very effectively. The dodgem car can clearly travel in space as well as time (let’s not go near the physics on this one) so we get to visit ancient battlefields and even the US wild west during our pilfering trips. For the former, they have clearly latched themselves on to existing reenactment group events (fun fact: as a student, I used to dress as a Cavalier and attend Sealed Knot events!). This allows us to drop into not only the English Civil War, but also the Napoleanic Wars.
Then, for the Western town, the team used Laredo Town, about 20 miles out of London, which probably DID cost them a decent slice of budget for a day’s rental. But I honestly thought that maybe they had travelled to the US for this…. they clearly picked a blazing hot summer’s day for the filming and the colour grading used really did make it feel like the sort of vivid desert lighting that you get out in the wilds of Arizona (hats off to cinematographer Richard Maskey).
The names they have associated with this little film are really quite impressive. I can only assume that the actors have some cut of the profits, or else their free pick of any object in Cha Cha Cha!
And no expense has been spent on the special effects, which are tackily spectacular in a low-budget, Doctor Who kind of way!
I’m a critic, so I’ll be bloody critical!
Given its low-budget joyfulness, I can overlook a few dodgy acting moments here and there. But I did find that tonally the film doesn’t really stick to its knitting.
We start in pseudo-documentary “The Office” style, with the documentary team interviewing Ruth and Megan. And occasionally, there are the odd nervous looks straight into the camera or Johnny Vegas going “What? What the f…” when he opens a door to Ralph and the film crew. But in many other scenes, that conceit is dropped (the documentary crew clearly didn’t travel to the Unreason!) and it is filmed from a third party viewpoint. This is all a bit jarring at times.
As with any comedy film, humour is in the eye of the beholder. While I loved most of this (a few sections fell a bit flat), some viewers may find this simply too silly to stomach.
Summary Thoughts on “Time Travel is Dangerous”
I can quite see this film becoming a sleeper hit, particularly with students staggering home from the pub, 4 pints down and clutching a dodgy kebab. Whether it will be a cinema hit will depend on its distribution (I’m not certain how easy this one will be to find come Friday) and word of mouth. But, this feels like the sort of film that will slowly but surely build something of a cult following around it.
Edit: I’ve contacted the PR lady for the film and she has advised that you can find a cinema near you (in the UK) showing the film by clicking here.
Where to Watch it (Powered by Justwatch)
Trailer for “Time Travel is Dangerous”:
The trailer is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKspASsIyuY .
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