'It was as familiar to them as a smart phone is to us today' - Historian and Celebrity Traitors star David Olusoga brings guns to the stage to explore firearm history

Olusoga has been involved in television since his late 20s, three years ago winning one of BAFTA’s highest honours in recognition of a screen career that has seen him become one of the nation’s leading TV historians. That broadcast career has run alongside one as an academic and writer, with the British-Nigerian star recognised time and again for his work in the field of history, presenting diverse stories of the past.

For his latest project, he uncovers the human tales behind the world’s most influential firearms exploring how weapons can change the course of history, shaping not just battles, but entire societies. His A Gun Through Time tour, which he brings to Yorkshire over the coming weeks, considers how firearms carry a complex legacy, entwining conquest, survival and social upheaval.

“The show is about the social history of guns," Olusoga explains. “Most of us don’t come into contact with firearms so it’s about trying to tell history through the objects the past leaves behind. These were objects that were part of the lives of millions of our ancestors - most of us have ancestors who served in the British armed forces in past centuries - but they’re also objects that changed the world.”

Olusoga takes four weapons onto the stage, including the Thompson Sub-Machine Gun, which transformed from a First World War “wonder weapon” to the notorious “Tommy Gun” of Prohibition-era America. Then there’s the Maxim Gun, which was used to subdue African territories and later caused unimaginable devastation on the Western Front, and the British Brown Bess flintlock musket – the weapon British soldiers took to Waterloo and that American rebels used to win independence for the United States.

The fourth Olusoga explores is the Lee-Enfield Rifle, the soldier’s companion in both World Wars and a legacy passed through two generations of British families. “The British army was about five million strong in the peak of the First World War,” he notes. “Five million of our ancestors could fire, strip and reassemble that weapon. It was as familiar to them as a smart phone is to us today.

"It’s about seeing the world from their perspective and remembering that these (weapons) were part of their lives….We are very historically and geographically unusual in that guns aren’t part of our lives when they are the part of lives of billions of people around the world and billions of our ancestors.”

When he got into history as a boy, Olusoga says the First and Second World Wars were his first passions, with his interest piqued in the experiences of ordinary people caught up in the events of the conflicts. His fascination for the past came in part from his school history teacher – but perhaps more influential for Olusoga was seeing history on television.

The 56-year-old now finds himself sharing the screen with such historians and filmmakers as Michael Wood and Adam Curtis who inspired him as a youngster. “It’s very humbling to think there are people who are drawn to history, for whom it becomes part of their life, because of the work I do, the way that history became a part of my life,” he reflects.

He wanted, from those early days, to become a historian, but never one solely focused on academia. For Olusoga, the goal was to be a public historian, one who makes history accessible and engaging to the wider population.

Key to that, he believes, is a fusion of historic scholarship and journalism – and it was that thinking that brought him to Leeds for a postgraduate degree in broadcasting, which he studied at the city’s Trinity University. “Leeds was where I learnt to be a journalist and as much as I’m a historian, I like to think what I learnt as a journalist has really shaped how I deliver stories as a historian,” he says.

Olusoga is known for work including Black and British: A Forgotten History and A House Through Time, the BBC series soon returning for a sixth season “that has made thousands of people go and study the histories of their homes”. “I think in general history on television has an immersive power that can convince people that there’s a magic there to understanding the past,” Olusoga says.

His appearance on The Celebrity Traitors last year was quite different to his usual work on screen, but equally enjoyable. “It was such fun and our excuse is that it was so much fun that’s why we were so terrible at it,” he chuckles. “My overwhelming memory of being in that castle is laughing. Some of the funniest people I’ve ever been with in some of the most ridiculous situations you would ever imagine.”

The show’s host Claudia Winkleman – the best presenter on British television in Olusoga’s view – has attributed its success to its format, a high-stakes psychological game. “She’s probably right about that,” Olusoga notes.

“There’s an amazing pleasure of being in the know and the audience has a completely different experience to the people taking part because they can see what the people who are taking part can’t see. There’s a great fun in watching people make mistakes, pick up the wrong clues and go up blind alleys. To you, the audience it seems so obvious but I have to tell you when you’re doing it, it doesn’t seem obvious at all.”

It was certainly a memorable experience of 2025 for Olusoga, but not the only one. He also interviewed former US President Barack Obama on stage at The O2 in London to an audience of around 15,000. “I think it shows there’s a real hunger to hear the analysis and the thoughts of people who have made history, of people who are careful and judicious in their understanding of the world,” he reflects.

“I think most people who came out of the O2 that night having heard his words and wisdom felt better and more hopeful about the world than they had at the beginning of the evening.”

His A Gun Through Time show is rather timely, given conflict in Ukraine and the Middle East and discussions taking place in Britain around rearmament and military expansion. “(Guns) are not part of our lives, the generation who have lived since the Second World War,” Olusoga says, “but increasingly we are beginning to wonder whether they may be more part of the lives of our children’s generations.”

“These guns shaped the world in all sorts of ways,” he adds. “They had an impact that I think is important to try to remember.”

- David Olusoga’s A Gun Through Time comes to Leeds Grand Theatre on April 19 and Grand Opera House, York on May 15. Tickets are on-sale at fane.co.uk/david-olusoga