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Nicholas Urfe, a young British graduate runs away from his monotonous life to take up a teaching post on the small Greek island of Phraxos.

There he meets the enigmatic figure of Maurice Conchis and slowly gets drawn into a world full of strange encounters and elaborate tricks on Conchis’s estate at Bourani. When Conchis introduces Nicholas to the enchanting and mysterious Lily Montgomery who bears a striking resemblance to Conchis’s long dead fiancée, reality and illusion begin to intertwine, but what strange game is Conchis playing with Nicholas?

Moreover, in this world coloured by artifice and deception, who is really telling him the truth?

First published in 1965 John Fowles’s novel ‘The Magus’ soon achieved cult status, but has only been dramatised once before in a film of 1968.

Now acclaimed dramatist and screenwriter Adrian Hodges (My Week with Marilyn, The Go-Between, Peter and Wendy, The Musketeers, Survivors, Primeval) has adapted the novel for this fresh three-part dramatisation starring Tom Burke (War and Peace, The Musketeers) as Nicholas Urfe, Charles Dance (And Then There Were None, Game of Thrones) as Maurice Conchis, and Hayley Atwell (Agent Carter, Brideshead Revisted) as Lily.

Nick ….. Tom Burke
Conchis ….. Charles Dance
Lily ….. Hayley Atwell
Alison ….. Anna Skellern
Margaret ….. Josie Taylor
Mitford ….. David Seddon
Meli ….. Chris Pavlo
Rowena ….. Lynsey-Anne Moffat

Harpsichordist: Maggie Cole
Recorder player: Martin Feinstein
Written by John Fowles
Adapted by Adrian Hodges

Producer: Heather Larmour

First broadcast on ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Radio 4 in March 2016.