While we were doing our research for Unusual New Year’s Traditions 1 [xx] we came across Dinner for One and it’s crazy place in the German-speaking world.
Dinner for One (1963), also known as The 90th Birthday (German: Der 90. Geburtstag, Swedish: Grevinnan och betjänten), is an 11 minute comedy sketch, written by British author Lauri Wylie for the theatre that has become a viewing tradition in German-speaking countries; where, since 1972, up to half the population watch it every year on New Year's Eve. Some die-hard fans even copy the meal served in the sketch.
The sketch is almost completely unknown in the United Kingdom, and its first national British television airing did not come until Sky broadcast the film on New Year's Eve 2018.
You really need to watch the sketch to fully appreciate the strangeness of this tradition. It begins with an introduction in German by actor Heinz Piper, followed by the main act in English. Miss Sophie (May 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 by 25 years, requiring her butler James (Freddie Frinton) to impersonate the absent guests.
James must not only serve Miss Sophie the four courses: 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 respectively), 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.
There are a number of running gags in the piece including one where James repeatedly trips over the head of a tigerskin rug. The rug has become sufficiently iconic to be available for sale on Amazon.de “as featured in Dinner for One”.
Before each course, James asks: "The same procedure as last year, Miss Sophie?"; Miss Sophie replies "The same procedure as every year, James." Both phrases are known to practically every German speaker that has any knowledge of English and have become part of the German language. As observed by Jude Stewart In a 2005 Slate piece titled “The Mystery of Dinner for One” … “walk into any bar in Bavaria and shout the film’s refrain: ‘The same procedure as last year, madam?’ The whole crowd will shout back in automatic, if stilted, English: ‘The same procedure as every year, James.’” Whacky enough for ya?
On 24 December 2011, a digitally edited satirical version entitled "The 90th Euro rescue summit, or, Euros for No One" was uploaded to YouTube HERE, featuring German Chancellor Angela Merkel as Miss Sophie and French President Nicolas Sarkozy as her servant; and, in 2016, Netflix made a parody HERE in which the guests are replaced with characters from Netflix shows. [Ed: Why?]
Finally, in March 2023, King Charles III, showing off his cross-cultural savvy, 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'!"
Why Germany finds Dinner for One so funny and the British don’t is, according to Der Spiegel’s Sebastian Knauer, “one of the last unsolved questions of European integration”.
Story Idea: Remo Giuffré
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References
wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinner_for_One
slate.com/culture/2005/12/a-new-year-s-tradition-only-the-germans-could-dream-up
Images
1. Dinner for One
2. Video: Dinner for One, Original High Quality German TV scene recording
3. 2024 New Year's Eve at Brandenburg Gate. Photo: Wolfgang Scholvien.
4. 2018 commemorative stamp for “Dinner for One”. Photo: Deutsche Post AG.
5. Dinner for One: the tigerskin rug. Photo: NDR.
6. Mock tigerskin rug “as featured in Dinner for One” for sale at Amazon.de
7. "The same procedure as last year, Miss Sophie?" ~ "The same procedure as every year, James."
8. Video: "Dinner for one" (Sarkozy and Merkel)
9. Video: Dinner for One à la Netflix (2016)
10. King Charles III on his state visit to Germany, March 2023
