Time Travel Is Dangerous Cinema Review

4 star funny and surreal sci-fi comedy mockumentary.

Time Travel Is Dangerous is a 2025 British sci-fi comedy mockumentary film, written and directed by Chris Reading (Somnus) and co-written and produced by Anna-Elizabeth and Hillary Shakespeare (The Shakespeare Sisters – Much Ado).

It is showing in UK cinemas from 28th March 2025, courtesy of Candr Pictures.

“Oh, hello there. It’s my absolute pleasure to welcome you to the leafy North London suburb of Muswell Hill. A pretty unremarkable place for the most part, were it not for its curious inhabitants.”

As the film opens, we are greeted by the narrator (Stephen Fry – The Hobbit, Wilde), who explains that the action takes place starting six years ago in Muswell Hill, London. He hands over to Ruth (Ruth Syratt) and Megan (Megan Stevenson), co-owners of the Cha Cha Cha bric-a-brac shop (in real life as well as in the film).

Their lives have changed quite dramatically recently with the discovery of a machine that resembles a bumper car dumped by the bins. They haul it home and soon discover that it is in fact a time machine, capable of taking them anywhere in history. They immediately put it to use, acquiring new stock for their shop for free, not really considering it to be stealing because they never stick around to see the consequences.

It also had with it lots of videos of an old TV show called The Future Today, featuring Dr. Ralph Sheldrake (Brian Bovell – Secrets and Lies, The Witches) and his robot assistant Botty (Johnny Vegas – Sex Lives of the Potato Men, Tulip Fever). When the local science group get wind of their activities, they are captured by the Chairman Martin (Guy Henry – V For Vendetta, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story). To their astonishment, Ralph is there, it is his time machine they have been using. He had promised fellow group founder Valerie (Sophie Thompson – A Traveller In Time, Gosford Park), that it had been destroyed years ago.

The whole group warn them of the dangers of using the time machine, but with landlord Rick (Simon Killick – Sleeping Dogs) breathing down their necks, can they resist the pull of all that free stock?

“We’re not, kind of, scientifically minded, so I mean, I say it’s a wormhole, but I actually don’t know what a wormhole is.”

Time Travel Is Dangerous is a very funny film, well written and thoroughly enjoyable. The acting is really good and having the main characters play themselves is a stroke of genius, as the on screen chemistry is undeniable between Ruth and Megan.

It’s incredibly frank about all kinds of matters, in the manner that only British films can be and some of the humour may be a little too dry to be appreciated outside of the UK. It is delightfully surreal, goes nowhere you would expect it to and features an hilarious cameo from the great Brian Blessed (The Hound of the Baskervilles, Flash Gordon).

All in all, it’s really good fun and well worth a trip to the cinema.

“Ralph, your time machine is in the hands of two of the most stupid, most ignorant, low intelligence people in Muswell Hill.”