There have been a number of excellent productions centred around the falling of the Berlin Wall and the division of the nation of Germany into East and West following the Second World War. You can add ‘The Palace' to that list of quality drama, because this is a belter!
If you want to avoid all spoilers, stop reading this article now.
‘The Palace' is set in 1988, a year before the Wall was breached, and centres on the story of two women from either side of the divide. Christine is a single mum and revue dancer in the chorus line of East Berlin’s famous “Kick Line”. And Marlene is a successful businesswoman working for her family’s engineering firm from the West who is visiting East Berlin for negotiations with the GDR Foreign Trade Ministry. Two very different women with entirely different backgrounds.
But when Marlene visits the revue during the business trip, she is shocked to see Christine on stage – because Christine looks exactly like her. Marlene waits until after the show to follow her but fails to find her until the next day. When they do meet, they can barely believe their eyes. They share their stories and discover that their birthdays are identical, but their backgrounds are entirely different. Marlene was raised by wealthy parents in Bamberg in West Germany, whereas Christine lived in relative poverty with her mum (her father, she believes, died in a car accident) in East Berlin.
Later, both women try to determine from their families who their real parents are, because clearly, they’ve both been lied to. Eventually Marlene learns the truth from the people she thought were her parents.
We also get tantalising glimpses of 1960s Berlin, where we start to understand how the twin sisters could have become separated from one another 27 years previously.
Der Palast, to give it its German title, is top quality drama. Svenja Jung – who plays both Marlene and Christine, of course – is quite superb in both roles. The show has had three nominations – Best Miniseries and Best Production Design at the German TV Awards in 2022; and Best Foreign TV Series in the Magnolia Awards at the Shanghai International TV Festival in the following year. And it certainly deserves a wider audience, so credit to Walter Presents for airing in over here.
The production values are excellent, and it’s a real nostalgia trip for those of us of a certain vintage to see the cars and fashions of the times – including a lovely scene where Christine dances with her daughter to '99 Red Balloons' by Nena.
This is a heart-warming and beautifully produced piece of television. One of Walter’s finest.
Walter Presents: ‘The Palace' is available as a boxset now on C4 Streaming.
