The African Queen was adapted as a one-hour radio play on the December 15, 1952 broadcast of Lux Radio Theater with Humphrey Bogart reprising his film role and joined by Greer Garson.

Samuel Sayer and his sister Rose are British Methodist missionaries in the village of Kungdu in German East Africa at the beginning of the First World War in August 1914. Their post and supplies are delivered by a small steam launch named the African Queen, helmed by the rough-and-ready Canadian mechanic Charlie Allnut, whose coarse behavior they stiffly tolerate.