David Olusoga, presenter of BBC Two's A House Through Time, has revealed his initial doubts about the show's appeal, which has since become a beloved fixture in British television. As the sixth series prepares to air this month, set in an 18th-century house on Calton Hill in Edinburgh, Olusoga reflects on why the programme has resonated so deeply with audiences.
From Doubt to National Obsession
Almost a decade ago, while filming the first series, Olusoga was not convinced the show would break through. 'I was concerned that audiences would struggle to understand why we had locked ourselves into the straitjacket of a single house,' he says. The series, which began with 62 Falkner Street in Liverpool's Georgian Quarter, followed the broader history of the city through the lives of its residents, from the house's first occupants to current owners.
'I was, it turned out, doing what TV producers are infamous for doing. I was underestimating the audience,' Olusoga admits. The show's popularity is evident in his daily encounters: 'The first question I am asked by the fans of A House Through Time is almost always the same: when is the next series coming out?'
The Magic of Old Houses
Olusoga now understands that the show taps into a universal fascination with the histories embedded in our homes. 'Houses with long histories are magical places,' he says. 'Anyone who has ever lived in such a house has, on a sleepless night or perhaps after too many glasses of wine, found themselves wondering who else had lived out their life in those same rooms.'
The series reveals the human stories that would emerge from our own homes if we had the time to look. 'It reminds us that houses have longer lives than we do,' Olusoga notes. 'No matter how many years or decades we live in them, our time there represents a single chapter in their far longer story.'
A Show Only TV Could Make
With the TV industry in a less healthy state than a decade ago, Olusoga appreciates that A House Through Time is 'one of those shows that only TV could make.' Only public service TV, he argues, would invest the time and money to uncover history at this level of granularity, believing that stories of ordinary people could grip millions.
The production relies on dedicated teams of researchers who often make breakthroughs at the last minute. 'In every series, breakthroughs have arrived at the last minute, often in the last weeks of filming, all because an assistant producer or a researcher, digging in the archives and working far beyond the call of duty, has located a missing link,' Olusoga explains.
Edinburgh's Vertical City
The new series marks a long-held ambition to take the show to Scotland. Edinburgh was chosen for its dramatic setting and unique architecture. 'Edinburgh is up there with Cape Town, Hong Kong and Rio de Janeiro when it comes to the sheer drama of its setting,' Olusoga says. The city's scarcity of space led to a vertical city of stone tenements, some rising to 10 or more floors, described as a 'medieval Manhattan.'
The featured house, a five-floor tenement on Calton Hill, has housed a diverse cast of characters. Among them was a man involved in one of Edinburgh's strangest trials, a woman who ran a 'house of ill-fame,' and a sculptor whose monuments still dot the cityscape. Olusoga notes, 'I have been walking past since I was brought to the city as a child in the 1970s.'
The series also contributes to the expansion of history, which has become more inclusive over decades. 'History is no longer just about “great men”,' Olusoga says. 'The emergence of social history, working-class history, women’s history and imperial history has uncovered the lives of people once deemed of little interest.' A House Through Time plays a small part in this bigger story, making ancestors worthy of study and remembrance.
A House Through Time airs on BBC Two on Thursday 13 August at 9pm.
