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.

Well, I he be in Vanidos to the rest is history or should I say Tom Holland, Mejaba, Salama, Lake on now we are in the middle of our great world cup Odyssey and we have reached the Kingdom of Spain. But Tom, you have chosen a topic from Spanish history before the Kingdom of Spain existed.

Haven't you and one of the most colorful and dramatic topics in all European history. I have it is as your exemplary mastery of languages introduced at the beginning of this suggested it is the caliphate of Cordoba, which is the golden age of Muslim Spain.

It's been called a further greater city in Western Europe. It's peak. So I want to look at how a caliphate came to be established in Spain. It's golden age and it's decline. So that's the plan, Dominic.

So this is the world of if anybody's been there. So I've been there. I guess you've probably been there Tom to call.

Yes, I have to the the wondrous edifice is the mesquita. So basically this extraordinary building that is the most magnificent mosque with a massive great cathedral.

Well, it's not. Yeah. Yeah. So it got reconquered by the Christians in the long run and got converted into a cathedral. And it's the most yes, it's the most a poll. And Dominic, do you know my solution to the whole Hagia Sophia,

Cordoba Mosque solution, basically they swap. Oh, yes, that is good idea. So the most cordoba becomes a mosque. Yeah. And Hagia Sophia becomes a cathedral. That's an excellent idea. And everyone's happy. So that's my but this is not about bringing solutions to contemporary geopelism problems. This is about history, Dominic. So in the public mind, Tom, this caliphate is this sort of lost golden age, this paradise of babbling fountains, people in hospitals, kindly philosophers, multiculturalism,

munching on oranges, listening to the tinkling of fountains, exactly people drinking sherbet, all this sort of stuff. Yeah. Am I on the right track? You well kind of on the right track. I mean, it is a great, great center of urban imperial civilization of a kind that would have been familiar to the Romans.

And indeed to people in Constantinople and back dad at the time, and it's a different order of sophistication to anything that you would have got say in France or Germany or England at the time does that mean it was a multicultural paradise. Well, we will explore and find out.

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