Hello and welcome to the Restless History, Dominic. Have you heard the latest exciting news about our live tour?

I have, Dominic. It's actually shocking news. It's shocking but also heartening. But just to remind you the listener, the rest is history is going on a nationwide tour at the end of April 2023.

I say tour but it's for three nights only. We'll be in London on the 25th of April and the historic Drury Lane Theatre. Then we'll be able to Edinburgh the following evening on the 26th of April to play at Usher Hall.

And we will finish on the 30th of April at the Larry in Sulford Greater Manchester. But Tom, the listeners are gacking to know about this shocking news that you have for them about the tour.

Ladies and gentlemen, I can announce that our London live show has now sold out. I repeat, all 2000 seats, yes 2000 seats at Drury Lane Theatre are now sold out.

So not even frozen the musical. The show that we are of course replacing at Drury Lane, not even frozen sold out that quickly.

I can imagine Elsa listening to this right now, fuming at the very thought of the rest is history stealing her snowy thunder. But Elsa, all I will say to you is let it go.

People can go to both shows. But just to emphasize, that's our first live date already sold out. And tickets are selling incredibly quickly for Sulford and Edinburgh too.

So if you do want to come, please buy your ticket right now to avoid disappointment. Now, if you've never been to one of our live shows, what a treat or wait. So we have an incredibly inventive approach.

Tom will take the first half and he will be running through his repertoire of Marilyn Monroe songs and I do be the do thanks for that. And I will be picking up after the interval with the PowerPoint presentation on the economic policies of Stanley Baldwin.

It's an absolute riot.

It's fun for all the family. So these are our first ever shows outside London as a podcast. So we'll be putting on a tour de force. I think Dominic is the only word for it in both greater Manchester and the Scottish capital.

So they'll be impressions, perhaps a Mureguin pipe music and plenty of absolute lads from history. Here is how you can get tickets. Just go to rest is history pod dot com. It is very, very, very straight forward. That is www dot rest is history pod dot com by your tickets now to Sulford and Edinburgh before it's too late.

Hello and welcome to the rest is history and if you are listening to this, the moment that the program has dropped early on the 1st of November, then you will be listening to it or on the night that traditionally has been regarded perhaps more than any other night of the as especially new menace as especially dangerous.

We've just celebrated Halloween and the big question is Dominic Sambrook. How far back does this celebration go?

Oh, we must go back to about the 1990s. When people started seeing it in American, I used to be a massive Halloween skeptic. I despised Halloween, absolutely despised it as a American invention. And then of course my son who is now nine came along and he loves his Halloween is one of his favorite days of the year.

It's obviously it swept all before it hasn't it, but the interesting question is is this the re-importation back to Britain of an originally British and Irish festival or is it pagan festival or so in other words does it.

Is there something in it that takes us back to the mysterious kind of murky world of the of our pre-Christian ancestors or is it the creation of a you know Wal-Mart executive in in deepest middle America.

Absolutely and that's why today's program is going to be on the theme of paganism.

I mean a massive topic. I don't know Stonehenge Druids the occult horned gods mother goddesses Greek and Roman paganism snake gods. Yeah, it's a massive subject. It's a brilliant subject.

And I thought it would be fun. So we're going to look at Halloween. Then we'll look at kind of modern paganism and then it would be quite fun to go backwards in time.

Backwards in time. Interesting. Backwards in. Yes, backwards in time to the very beginnings of of paganism.

...