Here is a very silly and very likable British mockumentary, one that – like Ruth and Megan, the two real-life Muswell Hill vintage-shop mavens at its centre – lovingly mixes and matches multifarious styles. Director and co-writer Chris Reading adopts a little The Office deadpan, some Shaun of the Dead bathos, a heap of Terry Gilliam, and even shoplifts a shot from Wes Anderson. If the resulting low-budget assemblage still bears these nametags and has the odd stray thread showing, it also has a persistent charm of its own.
The ChaChaCha vintage emporium (which really exists) is limping along until owners Ruth (Ruth Syratt) and Megan (Megan Stevenson) stumble on a time machine in the form of a souped-up bumper car – and thus an infinite supply of merchandise from whichever epoch they desire. It transpires the gizmo was invented by Ralph (Brian Bovell), former presenter of a Tomorrow’s World-style TV show and now burnt-out stalwart of the Muswell Hill Science Club. Suspicious about their surfeit of “old but somehow new” stock, club president Martin (Guy Henry) warns them about abusing the device. Of course they ignore him – until a visual migraine of a wormhole opens up in their backroom.
Where Syratt and Stevenson are note-perfect blase in their “interview” segments, connected by narration from Stephen Fry, Reading injects a serious fastidiousness and energy into the film. It’s particularly sharp on a particular breed of British hobbyism: not just fusty bric-a-brac hunters, but the petty territorialism of amateur clubs (incarnated in the tyrannically pedantic Henry), and the nerdy garden-shed inventor contingent who lapped up Tomorrow’s World. In the film’s parody of the show, titled The Future Today, Johnny Vegas has a nifty cameo as Botty, a fake android patronised by the presenters.
Reading also gets considerable mileage out of Time Bandits-style miniature historical segments and deliberately cheesy vortex graphics that bring the film’s preoccupation with nostalgia into sharper focus. If it has an early tendency to lean into vibes rather than precision gags, it also later accelerates – as Ruth is forced to rescue Megan from the Unreason, a kind of interdimensional refuse tip – into madcap fun that comes close to outrunning its influences. Starring in this thrifty little triumph could be the best business decision Syratt and Stevenson ever made.
• Time Travel is Dangerous is in cinemas from 28 March.
