A House Through Time: history in ordinary lives

There is something appealing about the idea behind A House Through Time: instead of beginning with kings, battles or famous names, it looks at the past through the people who lived under one roof. The production, staged at Portsmouth Playhouse in 2019, offered a historical story with a human scale, following former inhabitants and the changes that shaped their lives. For anyone who enjoys theatre that connects research with everyday experience, it made a thoughtful cultural plan in Portsmouth.

The house is the central character, but it is not treated as a museum object. Its rooms become a way into different periods, relationships and personal circumstances. The focus on ordinary residents gives the story room for details that can be easy to lose in a broad history lesson: how people used their homes, what their social position allowed them to do, and how events beyond the front door affected them. That approach also gives the play a clear emotional thread without needing to turn its characters into larger-than-life figures.

The idea has a wider connection with the BBC factual series of the same name, presented by historian David Olusoga. The television programme traces Britain’s social and political history through the residents of one property, using archives, records and descendants to reconstruct lives that might otherwise disappear from view. The second series, broadcast in 2019, centred on 5 Ravensworth Terrace in Newcastle and included contributions from Portsmouth professor Deborah Sugg Ryan, a design-history expert and series consultant. Her work explored how a house might have looked and functioned at different points in its history, adding interiors and domestic life to the historical record.

That context helps explain why the Portsmouth production works as more than a period piece. Its interest lies in the meeting point between a building and the people who pass through it. A change in status, a family decision or a shift in the wider city can all leave traces in a home, even when the residents themselves are not remembered beyond their address. Seen at the 250-seat Portsmouth Playhouse, near the seafront and the historic city centre, the play also sits naturally within a city where the past is part of the everyday surroundings. It is a suitable choice for a theatre visit built around history, character and the quieter stories behind familiar places.