In 1939 the BBC adapted the romantic novel "The Prisoner of Zenda" for radio broadcast. Its adapter, Jack Inglis, summed up his approach as follows: "The story is simple, with clear cut characters, and falls easily into episodes. It always seems to me, that it is the first duty of an adapter to reproduce in another medium the original flavour and atmosphere of the book". Inglis compressed several characters into one and simplified the plotline. The production struck a chord with listeners and served as a prototype for dramatic productions that followed it.