Looking For Tom Lehrer, ComedyÕs Mysterious Genius
This piece goes in search of a genius who went to Harvard aged 15, wrote comic songs that were a huge hit and with which he toured the world, then almost entirely vanished from the stage. Talking to People magazine in 1982, as ever he had the best words to describe some of what had changed “Things I once thought were funny are scary – now I often feel like a resident of Pompeii who has been asked for some humorous comments on lava.”