The Magic Mountain
by Thomas Mann
BBC Radio 3: The Sunday Play
Broadcast: Sunday 1st April 2001 @ 7:30 p.m.
"The Magic Mountain" takes place in an exclusive tuberculosis sanatorium in the Swiss Alps–a community devoted to sickness that
serves as a fictional microcosm for Europe in the days before the First World War. To this hermetic and otherworldly realm comes
Hans Castorp, an “ordinary young man” who arrives for a short visit and ends up staying for seven years, during which he succumbs
both to the lure of eros and to the intoxication of ideas.
Hans sits on the balcony of a sanatorium, wrapped in his camel's hair blanket, thermometer in his mouth, naively but earnestly
pondering the meaning of life, time, and his love for the beautiful Frau Chauchat. Among the other characters on this Germanic ship of
fools are the malapropian Frau Stohr; Hofrat Behrens, the head doctor, and his hearty but sick-looking sidekick, Dr. Krokowski;
Ludovico Settembrini, the enlightened humanist; Han's noble cousin Joachim Ziemssen; and Hermine Kleefeld, who, with her whistling
pneumothorax, is the pride of the Half-Lung Club. In this community organization completely in reference to disease, Hans Castrop
achieves a kind of transcendence unimaginable in the world of the "flatlands" below him.
Dramatisation by Olwen Wymark of Thomas Mann's 1924 classic novel, "The Magic Mountain".
With Paul Scofield [Narrator], Robert Whitelock [Hans Castorp], Clive Merrison [Ludovico Settembrini], Sian Thomas [Clavdia
Chauchat], Simon Ludders [Joachim Ziemssen], John Hartley [Dr. Hofrat Behrens], Norman Rodway [Mynheer Peeperkorn], Rhodri
Hugh [Naphta], Richard Elfyn [Dr. Krokowski], Christine Pritchard [Frau Stohr], Manon Edwards [Fraulein Englehardt], Tim Kirkus
[Wehsal], Jennifer Vaughan [Hermine Kleefeld], and Claire Cage [Veronique].
Music Composed By Colin Sell
Directed by Alison Hindell
Repeated on 'BBC Radio 3: Drama on 3' on 5th January 2003 @ 6:30 p.m.
140 min.
Jim
