After Harvard he goes to California to teach math to students on creative and artistic courses who need a basic maths unit to matriculate or graduate.  He also taught a course in the history of the musical, met Sondheim but disliked the folk singers of the 1960s like Bob Dylan. 

He never wrote about the Holocaust; perhaps that was a humorous step too far.  He agreed with Peter Cook that, why when the Weimar Republic was awash with satirical Cabaret, at the same time how was the Rise of Hitler and Nazism not prevented by satire.  He did have a dislike of Germans and Germany.  Lehrer wrote Wernher von Braun about the German aerospace engineer who escaped a trial for his Nazi war crimes so he could contribute in America to the space race against the Russians and become the real founder of NASA. 

The star of the show is the songs, the inventive lyrics, Hanukkah with Santa Monica, and in “I Wanna Go Back to Dixie”, Bol weevil with medieval, hominy with nominee.  Shahaf Ifhar is masterly. He has great presence and can deliver those tongue twisting lyrics with aplomb.  Nabilah Hamid is a charming singer and plays a persistent reporter My only regret is the omission of “The Masochism Tango”: maybe not political enough for the author but the highly sexual and full of inuendo “I Got It From Agnes” is the first song.

Although Tom Lehrer is Teaching Math and Doesn’t Want To Talk To You is only on until the 9th of June, pre-publicity has achieved a sell out but this excellent show should be revived soon or even transfer.