Dinner for One | |
---|---|
Written by | Lauri Wylie |
Directed by | Heinz Dunkhase |
Presented by | Heinz Piper |
Starring | |
Music by | Lew Pollack |
Country of origin | West Germany |
Original language | English (with German introduction) |
Production | |
Running time | 18 minutes |
Original release | |
Network | NDR |
Release | 8 July 1963 |
Dinner for One, also known as The 90th Birthday (German: Der 90. Geburtstag), is a television comedy sketch that is repeated every New Year's Eve in several European countries. The two-hander sketch was originally written by British author Lauri Wylie for the theatre. After featuring on the stage, the German TV broadcaster, Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR), recorded the sketch in 1963 as an 18-minute black-and-white videotape recording, performed in English by British comedians Freddie Frinton and May Warden. [1] The sketch begins with an introduction in German, followed by the main act in English, and is available online. [2]
It has become traditional viewing on New Year's Eve in countries such as Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Estonia. [3] In Norway it is broadcast on 23 December. As of 1995 it was the most frequently repeated television programme in Germany. [4] Despite originating as a British stage sketch, the TV version gained only limited recognition in the UK over 50 years after its recording. It was broadcast on New Year's Eve in Britain on Sky Arts from 2018 to 2020. [5] [6]
In other parts of the world, the sketch is broadcast in Australia and South Africa. Apart from a few satires, Dinner for One is not known in the United States, where the comic premise had already been made famous by Red Skelton and Lucille Ball. The article "Dinner for One: The greatest cult film you've never heard of", published in 2018, investigates the reason for its obscurity in the US. [7]
In 2003, Danish TV producer Paul Anthony Sørensen directed and produced a documentary about the sketch that includes interviews with relatives of Freddie Frinton and May Warden. It was nominated for the Rose d'Or 2004. [8]
In German-speaking countries, the broadcast features an introduction by Heinz Piper as the conferencier: Miss Sophie (Warden) is celebrating her 90th birthday. As every year, she has invited her four closest friends to a birthday dinner: Sir Toby, Admiral von Schneider, Mr. Pomeroy, and Mr. Winterbottom. However, she has outlived all of them, requiring her butler James (Frinton) to impersonate the guests. In some non-German speaking countries the introduction is omitted.
James must not only serve Miss Sophie the four courses à la russe – mulligatawny soup, North Sea haddock, chicken and fruit – but also serve the four imaginary guests the drinks chosen by Miss Sophie (sherry, white wine, champagne and port wine for the respective courses), slip into the role of each guest and drink a toast to Miss Sophie four times for each course. As a result, James becomes increasingly intoxicated and loses his dignified demeanour: he pours the drinks with reckless abandon, breaks into "Sugartime" by the McGuire Sisters for a brief moment, and at one point accidentally drinks from a flower vase, which he acknowledges with a grimace and exclaims "Oooh! I'll kill that cat!"
There are several running gags in the piece:
Finally, Miss Sophie concludes the evening with an inviting "I think I'll retire", to which James and Sophie repeat their exchange concerning the "same procedure". James takes a deep breath, turns to the audience with a sly grin and says "Well, I'll do my very best" before the pair retreat to the upper rooms. Both phrases "The same procedure as last year?" and "The same procedure as every year" are known to practically every German speaker that has some knowledge of English and have become part of the German language.
Lauri Wylie debuted Dinner for One as a sketch in his London stage revue En Ville Ce Soir in 1934. [9]
Frinton and Warden performed Dinner for One on stage on Britain's seaside piers as early as 1945; Frinton inherited the rights to the sketch in 1951 after Wylie's death. The sketch was also staged elsewhere, for example in 1953 in John Murray Anderson's Almanac at the Imperial Theatre with Hermione Gingold playing Miss Sophie, and Billy DeWolfe as the butler and four dead friends. [10]
In 1962, German entertainer Peter Frankenfeld and director Heinz Dunkhase discovered Dinner for One in Blackpool. The sketch was staged in Frankenfeld's live show on 8 March 1963 at the Theater am Besenbinderhof, Hamburg. Since no recordings of live TV shows could be made with the technology of the time, a recorded version was commissioned, which was staged at NDR's Studio B in the Lokstedt quarter of Hamburg, in front of a live audience, between 30 April and 4 May 1963. This version was first broadcast on 8 July 1963. The sketch was recorded in English with a short introduction in German. The introductory theme, Charmaine, was composed by Lew Pollack and recorded by the Victor Silvester orchestra. According to the NDR, Frinton and Warden were each paid DM 4,150. The recorded show was re-run occasionally until it gained its fixed spot on New Year's Eve in 1972.
The comic premise of the skit—a man consuming multiple rounds of alcohol and becoming comically drunk—is generally credited to American actor Red Skelton, who included a similar sketch as part of his vaudeville routines beginning in 1928 (and allowed the premise to be used by Lucille Ball in the famed I Love Lucy episode "Lucy Does a TV Commercial"). [11] There is no definitive evidence of when Wylie wrote the sketch; the first evidence there is of the Dinner for One sketch being performed is from 1934, and as neither Skelton nor Wylie were internationally famous at the time, neither one likely knew of the other's work. [9]
The sketch has become a viewing tradition on New Year's Eve in German-speaking countries, where up to half the population may watch it every year on New Year's Eve. Some die-hard fans even copy the meal served in the sketch. [12] The full 18-minute version is typically aired in Germany on Das Erste in the afternoon, and the regional third channels several times throughout the afternoon and evening. In Austria, ORF 1 airs the full sketch around 11:30 pm. Swiss public broadcaster SRF shows its own 11-minute version around 7:00 pm on SRF 1 and at 11:50 pm on SRF zwei. [13]
In Finland, the show is viewed by 400,000 viewers each New Year's Eve. It is also a New Year tradition in Scandinavian countries.
In Sweden, the show was suspended for six years after its first screening, deemed unsuitable because of James's heavy drinking. However, the TV network finally capitulated to popular demand and brought it back. [14] It has been broadcast every year since 1976 in Sweden, with the exception of 2004 in the wake of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami.
In 1985, the Danish television network, DR, decided not to broadcast the sketch, [15] [16] but received so many complaints that it returned the following year. With this single exception, Dinner for One has been shown on DR every 31 December since 1980.
It is also broadcast annually on New Year's Eve in the Faroe Islands.
In Norway, the show is broadcast on 23 December, also since 1980. In 1992, it was aired 15 minutes early, and the resulting audience uproar caused it to be re-broadcast later that night. [17]
It is broadcast annually on New Year's Eve in Australia by public broadcaster SBS (since 1989) [18] and South Africa, though it is not as well known as in Europe. It was shown briefly in the US (by HBO) in the 1970s.
The sketch is almost completely unknown in the United Kingdom, and its first national British television airing did not come until Sky Arts broadcast the film on New Year's Eve 2018 (although a year before, the film had been screened on Grimsby local channel Estuary TV). [19] The Sky Arts broadcast included English subtitles for the German-language introduction, the end of which briefly faded out followed by a fade in on Frinton, cutting out the moment when the German announcer introduces James.
In German speaking countries, the sketch is usually shown in the original English without dubbing or subtitles. It is easy to understand with even a basic knowledge of English due to the physical nature of the comedy. [20] British people are often perplexed by German fans' ability to quote dialogue. [21] After its sensational success on continental Europe Norddeutscher Rundfunk offered the sketch to the BBC. However, BBC was not interested since the sketch did not meet BBC quality standards.
This section needs additional citations for verification .(November 2018) |
The NDR television channel recorded several other versions in 1963. Danish TV shows a version in which no audience is heard.
A third, 11-minute version was recorded by Schweizer Fernsehen (Swiss Television) with less alcohol drunk.
Both the 18-minute and 11-minute versions have been released on DVD in Germany.
In 1977, the Dutch public broadcasting system created a Dutch language version starring Joop Doderer, but this never achieved the same popularity.
In 1999, the NDR released a colourised version.
In Denmark, a parody of the sketch was filmed, subtitled "The 80th Birthday", in which Miss Sophie's friends are still at the table (though the NDR version mentions that the last of Miss Sophie's friends died 25 years ago). Other versions have been produced in different German dialects, including one in Low German (this version, "Dinner for One Up Platt," is also aired on NDR in rotation annually along with the original), various re-enactments or parodies by different comedians, and a version featuring the German glove puppet character Bernd das Brot ("Bernd the Bread") named "dinner for brot". [22] In 1992 a color version was filmed in the Frankfurt festival hall with Bodo Maria and Macha Stein. The resulting VHS cassette/DVD was dedicated to the Frankfurt UFA GmbH star Camilla Horn. Camilla Horn had originally been meant to play the role of Miss Sophie. However, she had to withdraw due to illness.
On 24 December 2011, a digitally edited satirical version entitled "The 90th Euro rescue summit, or, Euros for No One", produced by Udo Eling and German state broadcaster ARD, was uploaded to YouTube. It features German Chancellor Angela Merkel as Miss Sophie and French President Nicolas Sarkozy as her servant and has new German (and some French) dialogue about the Eurozone debt crisis. [23]
In 2016, Netflix made a parody in which the guests are replaced with characters from Netflix shows, specifically Saul Goodman from Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul , Frank Underwood from House of Cards , Pablo Escobar from Narcos , and Crazy Eyes from Orange is the New Black . [24]
The line "Same procedure as every year" (in the original English) has become a very popular catchphrase in Germany. The phrase has entered everyday vocabulary, and is used in newspaper headlines and advertisements. [25] This is also the case in Norway, Denmark and Sweden.
The sketch resonated strongly with Norwegian,[ citation needed ] Luxembourgish and German audiences. [26] [27] The sketch is one of the most widely known pieces of English-language media in Europe despite its relatively minimal impact in Britain. [28]
Deutsche Post issued a commemorative stamp for the show on 11 October 2018. [29]
In January 2021, Google added an easter egg to their Knowledge Panel for the film. The panel included a tiger's head, which when clicked showed James running across the screen and tripping over said tiger. It also featured sound clips from the film, chiefly the line "Same procedure as every year, James." [30]
In December 2022, it was announced that German studio UFA would produce a six-part prequel series, set 50 years before the original version. [31]
In March 2023, King Charles III, delivering a speech at a banquet during his state visit to Germany, raised a laugh by saying, in German, "It is nice of you all, not to have left me alone with a 'Dinner for One'!" [32] In his speech to the German Bundestag, Charles III referred to "Miss Sophie" as an example of cultural exchange between Britain and Germany; [33] although he admitted that Miss Sophie does not "give a very accurate impression of modern Britain". [34]
The year 1963 involved some significant events in television. Below are lists of notable TV-related events.
Hancock's Half Hour was a BBC radio comedy, and later television comedy series, broadcast from 1954 to 1961 and written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson. The series starred Tony Hancock, with Sidney James; the radio version also co-starred, at various times, Moira Lister, Andrée Melly, Hattie Jacques, Bill Kerr and Kenneth Williams. The final television series, renamed simply Hancock, starred Hancock alone.
Freddie Frinton was an English comedian, and music hall and television actor. He is primarily remembered today as a household name in several Central European countries for his 1963 television comedic sketch entitled Dinner for One, a perennial national television broadcast New Year's Eve favourite there, whilst being largely forgotten in his home country.
In the Gregorian calendar, New Year's Eve refers to the evening, or commonly the entire day, of the last day of the year, 31 December, also known as Old Year's Day. In many countries, New Year's Eve is celebrated with dancing, eating, drinking, and watching or lighting fireworks. Some Christians attend a watchnight service to mark the occasion. New Year's Eve celebrations generally continue into New Year's Day, 1 January, past midnight.
Imogene Coca was an American comic actress best known for her role opposite Sid Caesar on Your Show of Shows. Starting out in vaudeville as a child acrobat, she studied ballet and pursued a serious career in music and dance, graduating to decades of stage musical revues, cabaret, and summer stock. In her 40s, she began a celebrated career as a comedian on television, starring in six series and guest-starring on successful television programs from the 1940s to the 1990s.
Brigitte Nielsen is a Danish actress, model, and singer. She began her career modelling for Greg Gorman and Helmut Newton. She subsequently acted in the 1985 films Red Sonja and Rocky IV, later returning to the Rocky series in Creed II (2018). Nielsen starred in the 1986 film Cobra alongside her then-husband Sylvester Stallone. She played a villain in Beverly Hills Cop II (1987) and starred as the Black Witch in the 1990s Italian film series Fantaghirò. She later built a career starring in B-movies, hosting TV shows, and appearing on reality shows.
The Red Skelton Show is an American television comedy/variety show that aired from 1951 to 1971. In the decade prior to hosting the show, Richard "Red" Skelton had a successful career as a radio and motion pictures star. Although his television series is largely associated with CBS, where it appeared for more than sixteen years, it actually began and ended on NBC. During its run, the program received three Emmy Awards, for Skelton as best comedian and the program as best comedy show during its initial season, and an award for comedy writing in 1961. In 1959 Skelton also received a Golden Globe for Best TV Show.
May Warden was an English actress and comedian.
Peep Show is a British television sitcom starring David Mitchell and Robert Webb, and created by Andrew O'Connor, Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain. The series was written by Armstrong and Bain, with additional material by Mitchell and Webb, among others. It was broadcast on Channel 4 from 19 September 2003 to 16 December 2015. In 2010, it became the longest-running comedy in Channel 4 history in terms of years on air.
"Charmaine" is a popular song written by Ernö Rapée and Lew Pollack. The song was written in 1926 and published in 1927. However, Desmond Carrington on his BBC Radio 2 programme marked the song's writing as being in 1913.
Germany has a long tradition of television comedy stretching as far back as the 1950s, and with its origins in cabaret and radio.
Hogmanay is a New Year's Eve television special broadcast by BBC One Scotland, covering Scotland's Hogmanay festivities for New Year's Eve.
"From All of Us to All of You" is an animated television Christmas special, produced by Walt Disney Productions and first presented on December 19, 1958 on ABC as part of the Walt Disney Presents anthology series. Hosted by Jiminy Cricket along with Mickey Mouse and Tinker Bell, the special combines newly produced animation with clips from vintage animated Disney shorts and feature films, presented to the viewer as "Christmas cards" from the various characters starring in each one.
Germany participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 2009 with the song "Miss Kiss Kiss Bang" written by Alex Christensen and Steffen Häfelinger. The song was performed by Alex Swings Oscar Sings!, consisting of producer Alex Christensen and singer Oscar Loya. The German entry for the 2009 contest in Moscow, Russia was internally selected by the German broadcaster ARD in collaboration with Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR). The announcement of "Miss Kiss Kiss Bang" as the German entry occurred on 9 February 2009 and the presentation of the song occurred during the Echo Music Prize awards show on 21 February 2009.
Dad's Army is a British television sitcom about the United Kingdom's Home Guard during the Second World War. It was written by Jimmy Perry and David Croft, and originally broadcast on BBC1 from 31 July 1968 to 13 November 1977. It ran for nine series and 80 episodes in total; a feature film released in 1971, a stage show and a radio version based on the television scripts were also produced. The series regularly gained audiences of 18 million viewers and is still shown internationally.
This is a list of British television related events from 1963.
BBC One's New Year's Eve specials have aired in varying formats; in 2000, and since 2004, they have prominently featured live coverage of London's New Year's Eve festivities, including the midnight bongs of Big Ben, and the fireworks show on the River Thames and London Eye.
Percy Stuart is a German TV series (1969–1972).
Lauri Wylie, originally Maurice Laurence Samuelson Metzenberg, was a British actor and author. He is primarily remembered as the author of the play "Dinner for One", the 1963 screen adaptation of which went on to become the most frequently repeated television programme ever, according to the Guinness Book of Records, due in large part to its place as a New Year's viewing tradition in Germany and other places.
Germany participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 2015 with the song "Black Smoke", written by Michael Harwood, Ella McMahon and Tonino Speciale. The song was performed by Ann Sophie. The German entry for the 2015 contest in Vienna, Austria was selected through the national final Unser Song für Österreich, organised by the German broadcaster ARD in collaboration with Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR). The national final took place on 3 March 2015 and featured eight competing acts, one of which was selected through a Club Concert wildcard round. The winner was selected through three rounds of public televoting, and "Heart of Stone" performed by Andreas Kümmert initially announced as the German entry for Vienna after gaining 78.7% of the votes in the third round, however the artist immediately forfeited his victory upon the announcement. The confirmation of national final runner-up "Black Smoke" performed by Ann Sophie as the German entry occurred during a post-show press conference. The unprecedented withdrawal of Kümmert garnered international media interest.