A House Through Time: Two Cities At War (BBC2)
History is a succession. Of full stops. Everything begins and then. Later. Everything ends, which. Is why historians talk about. The different periods. Of history.
Especially. David Olusoga. He uses more periods. More full stops. Than any other presenter.
This can become wearing quite quickly, as Prof Olusoga works his way with rhythmic emphasis through the script. Breaking every sentence into chunks of three or four words, he makes each phrase sound emphatic and final, until it’s impossible to tell which bits really matter.
Perhaps it’s a hangover from years of lecturing to students. But these days, no one takes notes. They’ve all got digital recorders. The prof needs to practise talking more quickly, and then everyone will get to lunch sooner.
Partly due to his disjointed narration, A House Through Time: Two Cities At War hasn’t really got going yet. Despite its opening promise to show us the Second World War from both sides, we’ve got no further than 1938.
David Olusoga in the dining room of Grosvenor Mount House. ‘A House Through Time: Two Cities At War hasn’t really got going yet. Despite its opening promise to show us the Second World War from both sides, we’ve got no further than 1938…’
Karen and David with David Olusoga. ‘The show’s researchers have picked out two similar mansion blocks of flats, one in London’s Marylebone district and the other in Berlin…’
David Olusoga at Grosvenor Mount House
So far, Germany is winning. The show’s researchers have picked out two similar mansion blocks of flats, one in London’s Marylebone district and the other in Berlin — and it’s the house on Pfalzburger Strasse that has the more interesting inhabitants.
One was a former WW1 aviator named Albert Henninger, who survived being shot down and taken prisoner, and went on to become the technical adviser on early German sci-fi movies.
Henninger was also a photographer, whose wife, Lisi, modelled for him. They appeared a golden couple, but in 1928 they divorced for unknown reasons. Olusoga speculated that the break-up might have been triggered by Lisi’s Nazi sympathies: she was an early party member.
Their neighbours included a chef, Bonifatius Folli, who came from West Africa to be the Duke of Mecklenburg’s personal cook, and later worked as a language teacher at Berlin University.
Folli’s wife, Auguste, was white. The couple must have faced intense prejudice, because Bonifatius applied for a visa to return to his native Togo, then a French colony. By a bitter irony, France denied him permission because he was a German citizen.
David Olusoga in one of the apartments of the building at Pfalzburger Strasse, Berlin – the one with ‘more interesting inhabitants’
Montagu Mansions in London have not yet produced any such human drama. Their most interesting resident is Cecil Bernstein, who ran a chain of upmarket cinemas with his brother Sidney.
These included a ‘picture palace’ in Tooting, south London, that seated 4,000. It’s hard to imagine an audience that size for a movie, but social historian Matthew Sweet popped in to explain that, in the Depression years, it was often cheaper to spend the evening in the warmth of the flicks than to have the electric heater on at home.
One pensioner wrote to Cecil, telling him she loved the Tooting Granada so much she went six times a week. ‘They all know me there and look after me,’ she said.
Lucky for her that, in the 1930s, cinema wasn’t yet just super- heroes and zombies.
