The coronation of a new king is disrupted when the king's brother drugs him. A distant relative who closely resembles the king steps in to take his place at the coronation.

PRISONER OF ZENDA - Great episode. The common theme of many an opera - impersonation of someone else to deceive - played out on the public stage. It's amusing how this guise always works so well in theater; I've never heard of it working in real life. In the story, the distant cousin of a future king benevolently impersonates his relative on coronation day to cover for his cousin's sickness following an attempted assassination. Once king, he begins to realize both the benefits of the role (cherchez la femme) and also the dangers. The faux king demonstrates grace and charisma as he dodges the landmines of power, ultimately finding himself in a moral dilemma upon which hinges his eternal happiness. Adaptations on CBS Radio Mystery Theater never disappoint. This one even has a great sword fight! Highly recommended episode. I give PRISONER OF ZENDA 4 out of 5 stars. JUROR #4

I love this episode. When I was 8 my family moved cross country. We drove and our car didn't have a radio, only a tape player. So we brought a bunch of our tapes, and taped a bunch of the radio before we left. This episode was in that collection -- the 1979 repeat date above is a week before we moved. But we didn't have that many tapes, fewer than 15 tapes, I'd guess. So we listened to this episode many times -- only I think the ending was cut off! If I heard it again, I could probably recite much of the dialog along with it, though I haven't heard it in over 40 years.

I just could not get into this one; I found it confusing & Evie Jester's character voices a little grating (I've gotten used to her voice over the years & she's a terrific voice-over actress, but in this story her voice was distracting for me).