Take away the iPads and fill the room with tobacco smoke, then the transportation of Aberdeen’s Arts and Theatre Centre back to the mid-1980s might have been complete.
Not since those days had so many Labour “comrades” gathered in the north-east to speak openly about “socialism”, nuclear disarmament and industrial “re-nationalisation” with such belief and intent.
That has been the effect of the campaign led by Jeremy Corbyn, the man aiming to take the party back to the future in the face of dire warnings from New Labour stalwarts – and there was no attempt to disguise those aims as the bandwagon rolled into a sun-drenched Granite City yesterday.
But the potential prime minister insisted: “It’s not a question of us as a movement or as a party looking back, it’s a question of us learning the lessons of those people that gave up and suffered so much for all of us and take it forward.”
There was plenty of reminiscing yesterday, however, with trade union organiser Tommy Campbell giving Mr Corbyn a “big Bon Accord welcome” by educating him on Aberdeen’s radical heritage, from opposing the slave trade, to the role of local Suffragettes and Spanish Civil War fighters, to campaigns against the poll tax, Apartheid and the Iraq invasion.
Former MP Katy Clark, another high-profile backer in the city yesterday, recalled her time as chairwoman of Aberdeen’s University Labour club in 1985, saying many of the major issues at that time were “as relevant today as they were then”.
Plenty has changed in the last three decades, however.
A Labour leadership contender speaking about socialism would not have raised any eyebrows back then, but Mr Corbyn’s campaign has caused a sensation, and is threatening to split the party.
A media scrum awaited the North Islington MP’s arrival on King Street, with no less than 30 journalists, photographers and cameramen in town for the start of his two-day Scottish tour.
With the phrase “Straight Talking, Honest Politics” projected onto the screen behind the stage, Mr Corbyn won several rounds of applause and more than one standing ovation from the 250-strong audience, many of whom were not born in 1985 and some of whom no doubt voted for the SNP at May’s election.
Incredibly, Mr Corbyn did not once mention the party that obliterated Labour in Scotland a few weeks ago during his 30-minute rallying speech and subsequent question-and-answer session, speaking only vaguely about “working with others” to oppose austerity.
“The sun always shines when Jeremy is in town,” joked Neil Findlay, the MSP co-ordinating his colleague’s campaign in Scotland, as the session came to a close and the team prepared to depart for the next leg of the tour in Dundee.
Many of the activists leaving the Arts Centre and Theatre yesterday afternoon certainly appeared in a sunnier disposition and more optimistic about the future than they have been in years.
Others with a sharp memory of Labour’s years in opposition in the 1980s and 1990s will see storm clouds on the horizon.