It is the most repeated, and possibly the most beloved, British comedy sketch in history, and yet most Britons have never heard of it.
Dinner for One, a 15-minute skit recorded in 1963 by Grimsby comedian Freddie Frinton, is a national institution in Germany, where it is screened every New Year’s Eve, and is also wildly popular in Scandinavia and the Baltics. But while it holds the Guinness world record as the most repeated TV programme in history, perhaps remarkably, it has never before been broadcast on British TV.
Until now. Fifty-five years after Frinton recorded his sketch for the German broadcaster NDR, British TV viewers will have an opportunity to see it for the first time when Sky Arts broadcasts it on New Year’s Eve.
Frinton was a Grimsby fish filleter turned music hall entertainer, who first incorporated the sketch – originally written by playwright Lauri Wylie – into his act in the 1940s. He was performing it on stage in Blackpool when it was spotted by the German entertainer Peter Frankenfeld, who persuaded Frinton to record it for TV in front of a live audience in Hamburg in 1963.
The sketch was an instant hit with German audiences and broadcasters took to using the recording, together with a short introduction in German, as a filler between programmes. In 1972, it was first shown, at 7.40pm, to fill a gap in scheduling on New Year’s Eve and a tradition was born.
Dinner for One centres on the 90th birthday of an elderly English woman, Miss Sophie, played by May Warden, and the dinner party she is throwing for four guests, aided by her butler James. Alas, all her friends – Sir Toby, Admiral von Schneider, Mr Pomeroy and Mr Winterbottom – have died, leaving Frinton’s James to impersonate each in turn.
As he downs each of the absent guests’ drinks across four courses, Frinton’s James becomes increasingly drunk, stumbling over a tiger head rug, spilling drinks and nearly upending Miss Sophie in her chair. It concludes with him leading his employer upstairs to bed, with a bawdy wink and the catchphrase “Same procedure as last year, Miss Sophie?” “Same procedure as every year, James”.
The sketch has achieved a cult status across northern Europe that is barely imaginable to bemused Brits. It has spawned events, themed restaurants and multiple parodies, while its catchphrase has settled into German everyday usage. Versions have appeared with German subtitles in various dialects or digitally remastered in colour.
Perhaps most popular in Germany is the ritual of using the sketch as the basis for a mass drinking game. Viewers try to keep up with the butler’s drinking, downing either four shots, or the full sherry, port, champagne and wine served at Miss Sophie’s dinner.
Frinton did not live to see Dinner for One’s huge success, dying in 1968 at the age of 59. His family, too, took a while to become aware of the sketch’s popularity, Frinton’s son Mike told the Herald newspaper last month, in an interview to mark Dinner for One’s first ever cinema screening at the Scottish comedy film festival in Campbeltown.
“We weren’t aware of it,” he said. “My mum wasn’t even receiving royalties until she changed Dad’s agent, and they rang up one day and told her that this was happening and that some money had come in.”
In Germany, some believe Dinner for One’s popularity lies in the breaking of taboos – heavy drinking, old age, sex and death. Others think it plays to German ideas of the British upper classes as a bunch of drunken eccentrics stubbornly married to tradition. Still others see in it the simple slapstick humour of a drunken butler tripping over a rug, or the repetitive nature of the script.
Whatever the reason, “we hope our viewers will enjoy watching it as many audiences have and maybe Sky Arts will start a new tradition here in the UK for this brilliant popular show,” a spokesperson said. Same procedure as every year?
Dinner for One will screen on Sky Arts on 31 December at 6.10pm