Thomas Mann: Buddenbrooks, Death in Venice, The Magic Mountain: Three BBC Radio full-cast dramas

Dramatisations of Thomas Mann’s three bestselling novels

One of Germany’s greatest and most revered writers, Thomas Mann won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1929. A vocal critic of Nazism, he had to leave his homeland when Hitler came to power, and lived in exile in Europe and America for the rest of his life. Collected here are full-cast adaptations of his three most famous novels.

Buddenbrooks – Drawing on Mann’s own experience as the son of a wealthy merchant in 19th-century Lübeck, his debut novel follows four generations of Buddenbrooks as they struggle to maintain the family business in the face of change. Powerful, humorous and heartbreaking, this epic drama traces the decline of a civilisation as well as a family. Starring Terence Edmonds, Harriet Walter, James Laurenson and Timothy Spall.

Death in Venice – Seeking inspiration, a famous German writer travels to Venice, but finds only decay and disease behind the city’s gorgeous facades. Then he notices a beautiful young Polish boy, and is consumed by a fatal obsession... Clive Francis stars as Aschenbach, with Peter England as Tadzio.

The Magic Mountain – When Hans Castorp pays a social visit to a Swiss sanatorium, he is himself diagnosed with TB and ends up staying for seven years. Trapped on the mountain, he becomes acquainted with his fellow inmates – including the humanist, the radical, the dionysiac and the inamorata – who represent a microcosm of European society and culture in the run-up to World War One. Paul Scofield stars in this radio version of Thomas Mann’s masterpiece.

First published 1901 (Buddenbrooks), 1912 (Death in Venice), 1924 (The Magic Mountain)

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© 2026 BBC Digital Audio (Lydbog): 9781529143836

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Lydbog: 8. januar 2026