Let me draw your attention to a neat, underground podcast, The Rest is History. Something about co-host Dominic Sandbrook’s warmth, and other-host Tom Holland’s gentle sardonism makes me think these guys are gonna be huge.

It’s difficult to get exact figures on monthly listens but let’s put it somewhere in the 10-20 million range. The pair have sold out multiple nights at the Sydney Opera House, they hosted a festival in Hampton Court Palace, and did three nights in Ireland earlier in the year. Sandbrook and Holland are the modern face of mainstream history. That accolade used to belong to Antony Beevor, Max Hastings Ron Chernow and their giant tomes – 544 pages on the battle of Stalingrad, 812 on the Morgan banking dynasty.

Now? Some 880 episodes from Tom and Dom – a recent series of four about The Troubles, five on Jack the Ripper, six on Mary Queen of Scots, the Battle of Hastings here, a few episodes about the Incas there, the Titanic, Rome at war, Churchill in Gallipoli, Oswald Mosley at Cable Street, Hadrian and Antinous, “History’s Greatest Dogs”, Darwin, Calvin, Hundred Years’ War, Reagan and Iran Contra, Leopold’s invasion of the Congo. If it happened, The Rest is History will cover it.

Their influence extends further than Spotify, too – publishers look out for books the pair........

© The Irish Times