Author:Jonathan Myerson,Alex Kingston,Full Cast,Henry Goodman,Freddie Fox,Natalie Dormer
A 16-part dramatised reconstruction of a landmark moment in history - the groundbreaking trial of the 22 most notorious Nazi war criminals
Summer, 1945. The war is over, and Germany has surrendered. Across Europe, the top surviving Nazis are being tracked down, arrested, and imprisoned in a once-opulent Luxembourg hotel, on 24-hour suicide watch. Now, the Allies must decide what to do with them. After much deliberation, Britain, America, Russia and France agree that Hitler's high command must be formally tried. This will be an entirely new kind of trial, with utterly new charges: those of 'Crimes against Humanity' and 'Genocide'. And before it can even take place, numerous crises and obstacles must be overcome...
As court proceedings finally get underway, the enormity of the Nazis' crimes is revealed via a mountain of documentary evidence: and chilling footage of the concentration camps. Over the next 218 days, the accused - among them Hitler's architect and close ally, Albert Speer, and deputy Hermann Goering - are cross-examined, and forced to admit to the shabby gangsterism of the Nazi war machine. With the judges' verdict imminent, who will be executed, and who acquitted?
Featuring a stellar cast, including Henry Goodman, Freddie Fox, Alex Kingston and Natalie Dormer, Jonathan Myerson's epic series brings the process alive from the ground up. We see the trial - and the events leading up to it - through the eyes of some of the myriad individuals involved: the US Army officer guarding the cells; the Russian interpreter translating the indictments; the psychologist who runs tests on the defendants, hoping to find the mystery of human evil; and the young German girl working in the court cafeteria, who must come to terms with her country's collective guilt.
Drawing on eyewitness testimony, contemporary reports, over 20 volumes of court transcripts and more than 2000 hours of audio and newsreel, this comprehensive drama gives us a fresh understanding of the immense achievement of those who fought for justice in 'the last battle of World War II' - and reveals how that phenomenal historical moment shaped our world today.
Also included is a bonus interview in which Jonathan Myerson discusses the writing of Nuremberg with Kristan McMahon of the Robert H. Jackson Center.
Credits
Written and directed by Jonathan Myerson
Produced by Nicholas Newton
Sound Designer: Adam Woodhams
Studio Manager: Mark Smith
Casting Director: Ginny Schiller
Original Score: Metaphor Music
A Promenade Production for BBC Radio 4 and BBC Sounds
First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 27 August-15 October 2021
With thanks to Kristan McMahon
© 2022 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd
(p) 2022 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd
This is an enormously ambitious book, one in which the intimate and the momentous are exquisitely balanced. It is the story of a man who spent almost all of his adult life behind a desk or going for sedate little post-prandial walks with his wife. From this sedentary existence Tóibín has fashioned an epic
—— GuardianI love everything Colm Tóibín has written and The Magician is another masterpiece . . . Historical fiction at its best
—— Nicola Sturgeon , New Statesman, Books of the YearSumptuous and satisfying
—— The Times, A Best Fiction Book of 2021The Magician, recreates as biographical fiction the life, thoughts and achievements of Thomas Mann. It is dark, beautifully constructed and, I think, as near as one author can get to entering the mind of another
—— Melvyn Bragg , New Statesman, Books of the YearThe Magician uses the life of Thomas Mann to explore the complex relationships between intimacy and history, public and private lives, and the slippery nature of creativity itself. I found it mesmerising
—— Fintan O’Toole , New Statesman, Books of the YearTaking on Thomas Mann is no easy task, but Tóibín's fictional account of the inner life of the great German novelist is masterful
—— Frederick Studemann , FT, Best Books of 2021: Critics’ PicksThe Magician is not a biography but a work of art, an emotional reckoning with a century of change, centred on a man who tried to stand upright but was swayed by the winds of that change
—— The TimesIn a novel of many moods, its every page rings true
—— Mail on SundayAn expansive yet deeply personal exploration of the life of exiled German writer Thomas Mann . . . Containing beautiful observations on life and literature, and a sweeping sense of historical scale, The Magician remains tightly written and wryly funny
—— IndependentBoth epic and intimate, The Magician is most successful in its moving portrait of three generations of sprawling, loving, fractious family life . . . a triumph
—— Financial TimesA triumph
—— Daily TelegraphA sweeping overview of Thomas Mann's life
—— Justine Jordan , Guardian, Best Fiction of 2021The Irish novelist famed for Brooklyn imagines the world of the German Nobel-winning writer Thomas Mann and his secret desire for handsome young men, in what the Times reviewer John Self says is his best novel yet
—— The Times, Best Books of 2021As with everything Colm Tóibín sets his masterful hand to, The Magician is a great imaginative achievement -- immensely readable, erudite, worldly and knowing, and fully realized
—— Richard FordColm Tóibín has already written several truly extraordinary novels. The Magician may be the very best of them
—— Sunday IndependentThe Magician is a remarkable achievement. Mann himself, one feels certain, would approve
—— John BanvilleThis graceful novel is a moving and intimate portrait by one master of another . . . It is a stunning tribute to the great man, and a vital story for now
—— Anna FunderA masterpiece, vast and luminous . . . witty and profound and truthful
—— Tessa HadleyExtensively researched and lyrically wrought . . . a complex but empathetic portrayal of a writer in a lifelong battle against his innermost desires, his family and the tumultuous times they endure
No living novelist dramatizes artistic creation as profoundly, as luminously, as Colm Tóibín, or conveys so well the entanglement of imagination and desire . . . Reading him is among the deepest pleasures our literature can offer
This is not just a whole life in a novel, it's a whole world - with all its wonders, tragedies and sacrifices. I loved every page of this beautiful and immersive journey into The Magician's mind
—— Katharina Volckmer, author of The AppointmentToibin's symphonic and moving novel humanizes [Mann] . . . Maximalist in scope but intimate in feeling
—— New York TimesMr. Tóibín wields a dramatically stripped-down prose style . . . epiphanies, when they come, are all the more powerful after so much restraint . . . What Mr. Tóibín's exquisitely sensitive novel gets right, in a way that biography rarely does, is its acknowledgement of unknowability
—— Wall Street JournalA haunting and heartrendingly intimate portrait of its protagonist, the German writer Thomas Mann, and a richly drawn sense of place . . . [a] vast and stunningly realized world . . . you'll find yourself savouring every page
—— Vogue, a Most Anticipated Book of FallAn incisive and witty novel that shows what good company the Nobelist and his family might have been
—— Washington PostIt's a work of huge imaginative sympathy . . . quite thrilling . . . it takes a writer of Tóibín's calibre to understand how the seemingly inconsequential details of life can be transmogrified, turned into art
—— New York Times Book ReviewThe hallmarks of Tóibín's diaphanous prose - stillness, precision, intimacy- remain intact despite the wideranging, voluminous material of Mann's biography . . . in a quietly epic tale, Tóibín expertly captures the layers of a richly multiple self and surely reasserts his own status as one of our greatest living novelists
—— iWonderful . . . a very accomplished and enjoyable novel
—— ScotsmanSimultaneously intimate and transnational . . . this is deeply engaging, serious and beautiful writing that carries its echoing questions with grace
—— Irish TimesCompelling . . . Superb characterisation and sharp insights throughout make this an immensely enjoyable novel
—— Daily MirrorIntelligent and enthralling
—— ScotsmanThe Magician, Colm Tóibín's new novel about Mann, resists the shallow gestures of Hollywood biopics, reaching for something mainstream film couldn't get at, or wouldn't bother with. How does an artist create, and can a true artist live as the rest of us do?
—— Rumaan Alam , VultureThis meticulously woven novel re-creates the life of Thomas Mann . . . An ode to a 20th-century genius and a feat of literary sorcery in its own right
—— Oprah MagazineThe personal and public history is compelling . . . an intriguing view of a writer who well deserves another turn on the literary stage
—— Kirkus Reviews, starred review[The Magician] vibrates with the strength of Mann's visions and the sublimity of Tóibín's mellifluous prose. Tóibín has surpassed himself
—— Publishers Weekly, starred reviewThis vibrates with the strength of Mann's visions and the sublimity of Tóibín's mellifluous prose. Tóibín has surpassed himself
—— Publishing NewsCompelling . . . Tóibín succeeds in conveying his fascination with the Magician, as his children called him, who could make sexual secrets vanish beneath a rich surface life of family and uncommon art . . . intriguing
—— Kirkus Reviews, starred reviewEmploying luxurious prose that quietly evokes the tortured soul behind these literary masterpieces, Tóibín has an unequalled gift for mapping the interior of genius
—— Booklist, starred reviewLiterary lovers will want to sink into this absorbing reimagining of the life of the Nobel Prize-winning German writer Thomas Mann . . . Mann family members have their own struggles - with each other and a world where they rarely feel at home - all vividly brought to life
—— AARPYou don't have to be a Thomas Mann fan to be gripped by the account of his life that author Colm Tóibín delivers in his new novel . . . [Tóibín's] his biggest triumph is in getting to the heart of Mann's dilemma
—— Seattle TimesA celebration of what novels can do
—— Observer on ‘House of Names’Devastatingly human . . . savage, sordid and hauntingly believable
—— Guardian on 'House of Names'Tremendous, richly beautiful, wonderful . . . it does everything we ought to ask of a great novel
—— Tessa Hadley, Guardian, on ‘Nora Webster’Subtle and enthralling
—— Sunday Times, on ‘Nora Webster’A sweeping saga that alternates between the life of a tenacious female aviator in the 1930s and that of a millennial film star cast to play her in a biopic. In death, 'each of us destroys the world,' the author observes - but her engrossing novel is a moving reflection on the will to survive
—— THE ECONOMISTArtfully constructed and exhuberantly entertaining
—— THE MAIL, BOOK OF THE YEARShipstead soars in this expansive, beautiful novel about women and flight
—— THE STRAITS TIMESEngrossing, ambitious, beautifully written
—— DAILY EXPESS, Summer ReadingCompletely engrossing from the very first page. You won't be able to put this down
—— HELLO MAGAZINEA brilliant saga of a book. It will absolutely captivate you
—— JANE GARVEY, Fortunately Podcast