Muswell Hill shopkeepers star in film with Stephen Fry

Crouch End was famously the setting for a zombie attack in Shaun of the Dead, now Muswell Hill becomes a portal to another dimension in Time Travel is Dangerous.

With its blend of The Time Bandits and Spinal Tap style mockumentary, the movie musters a dizzying array of British comedy talent.

The movie features an array of British comedy talent including Johnny Vegas, Sophie Thompson and Jane Horrocks. (Image: Time Travel is Dangerous) Sophie Thompson, Jane Horrocks, Johnny Vegas, Kiell Smith-Bynoe, Mark Heap, Tony Way and the voice of Stephen Fry as a Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy-esque narrator, all feature in the low budget flick.

But the two leads are played by non-actors Ruth Syratt and Megan Stevenson, real-life best friends who run Muswell Hill vintage shop ChaChaCha.

Chanelling a deadpan French & Saunders energy, they travel through time in a customised dodgem car collecting historical artefacts to sell in their shop.

A Muswell Hill primary school, a Crouch End hi-fi shop, ChaChaCha in Avenue Mews, and even the Highgate Lit and Sci were used as locations for the movie, which has a gala opening at the Muswell Hill Everyman on March 28, before going nationwide on more than 30 screens.

A nerdy inventors club who meet in a Muswell Hill primary school end up saving the day in the comedy Time Travel is Dangerous. (Image: Time Travel is Dangerous) Chris Reading directed and co-wrote the script with sisters Anna-Elizabeth and Hillary Shakespeare.

“There are a ton of influences in there from ET to Terry Gilliam, to mock docs like The Office, but my main aim was to feel like it is of a place,” he said.

“I used to live in Archway and it’s a love letter to Muswell Hill, Crouch End and Highgate – and the people who live there like Ruth and Megan.

“Those areas definitely have a nice village feel and lots of community but ask anyone to come into the centre and it’s like they need their passport stamped!”

Chris cast his friends, real life Muswell Hill shopkeepers Ruth and Megan, as the lead characters who travel through time in a dodgem car collecting historic items to sell in their shop. (Image: Time Travel is Dangerous) Chris met Ruth and Megan on the set of a commercial where they were doing props and costumes. He says: “We all became friends. I thought they were really funny and wanted to put them in something. The film is based on their personalities. We’ve added all the bonkers elements around them, but it’s 99% real.”

With its jumpsuits, bum-bags and old videotapes, the film is also a love letter to the 1980s, including a Tomorrow’s World-style TV show featuring Smith-Bynoe’s presenter and Johnny Vegas as robot ‘Botty’, who are inventors of the time machine.

Chris says: “Johnny Vegas gave the project a big push when he came on board because lots of people wanted to work with him.”

The duo’s reckless escapades plundering from the Jurassic to the medieval period and the American Wild West unleashes a terrifying inter-dimensional rift called ‘The Unreason’.

It’s a bizarre hellish world populated by Horrocks, Heap and an octopus-like alien voiced by Brian Blessed, trapped in a never-ending board game.

Chris says it was great to work with so many seasoned professionals on his debut feature.

“It makes it so much easier when someone’s got it and you can trust them and even rely on a bit of improv. Some of our cast were very experienced and enjoyed the option to try out lines – we encouraged people to have fun but spent a lot of time making sure we nailed every joke.”

When Megan gets stuck in The Unreason, Ruth has to work with a nerdy local inventors’ club – played by Thompson, Way and Brian Bovell – to save her best friend.

“Our budget was small for a sci-fi, but it has a janky, home made premise of DIY inventions stuck together with tape which gave us latitude to have fun with the art department,” says Chris.

Advances in digital effects allowed them to create a swirling vortex above the streets of Muswell Hill and fly a van down the high street.

It all ends with a party. Chris says: “It may not have a deep meaning but at its core is a friendship which is real, and a Star Trek-type plot where people have to work together to solve a problem – these uncool, pedantic inventors save the world at the end.

“It’s a feelgood movie that takes people on a journey and I hope people find it heartwarming.”