How To Disappear Completely

I love the BBC

Because who else would produce radio programmes describing how Gilbert and Sullivan were 19th-century punks?

I mean, G & S lambasted every authority structure of their day: politicians, lawyers, the police, upper crust society.

Plus excerpts from The Beggar's Opera. As well as all the adaptations, some bizarre and some rather brilliant. This is making my afternoon!

On a related note, the programme describes how G & S managed to transcend their time period, despite their very contextualized topics, by producing witty lyrics. Other lyricists have only ever come close, says the radio host: Tom Lehrer is perhaps the best that the English-speaking world has produced since Gilbert's brilliant day. And so I include Poisoning Pigeons in the Park. I dedicate this song to Tuggy, who introduced me to Tom Lehrer.