Sharing secrets is a natural human instinct – and the boom in audio is providing new platforms for the juiciest stories

In the latest series of The White Lotus, childhood best friends Laurie, Kate and Jaclyn arrive at a luxury Thai hotel for a girls’ ­holiday. The trio appears to have a perfect dynamic, but on the first night, two friends descend into a gossiping session about the third, crystallising unspoken tensions in the group.

Gossip drives all kinds of dramas – it’s the central force behind every series of Bridgerton, the beating heart of teen drama Gossip Girl. Where would Jane Austen’s characters, or even Hilary Mantel’s imagining of Thomas Cromwell, be without insider secrets?