Enlarge image
May Warden as Miss Sophie dining alone, Freddie Frinton as James the servant in the hit TV skit Dinner for One
Photo: DPA/ NDR/ Annemarie Aldag
Butler James and his fight with the tiger skin – the boozy sketch “Dinner for One” is a must at the end of the year.
The 18-minute booze has been getting Germans in the champagne mood for more than 50 years and is more popular than the New Year's speech.
The original slapstick will again be running on several channels this year on New Year's Eve and at night.
So if you zaps long enough, you have a good chance of being part of the turbulent dinner by the early evening at the latest.
Broadcast dates for December 31, 2022 and January 1, 2023
ARD:
6.40 p.m. and 5.10 a.m. on New Year's morning
NDR:
3:30 p.m., 5:35 p.m., 7:40 p.m., 11:35 p.m., 12:25 p.m. Version in Low German
WDR:
5.35 p.m., 5.10 p.m. (Dinner op Kölsch), 4.40 p.m. (Dinner for Wan(ne))
MDR:
7 p.m
SWR:
7:25 p.m
BR:
7:40 p.m
RBB:
7:00 p.m. and 5:30 a.m. on New Year's Day
SRF 1:
7:05 p.m. (Swiss version)
SRF 2:
00:05 (Swiss version)
HR:
7:10 p.m.,
4.50 p.m. (Hessian), 6.45 p.m. (Northern Hessian)
ORF 1:
11:20 p.m. and 5:30 a.m. on New Year's Day
Swiss 1:
8:20 p.m. and 11:30 p.m
NDR recorded the sketch with Freddie Frinton as Butler James and May Warden as Miss Sophie in 1963, since then it has been shown on the last day of the year.
It didn't take long for the NDR production to attain cult status: in 1988, »Dinner for One« was even included in the Guinness Book of Records as the »world's most frequently repeated television production«.
Channels in Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, Australia, Luxembourg, Belgium, Austria and Switzerland also show »Dinner for One« on New Year's Eve.
But what only a few people know: until a few years ago, the English-language sketch was completely unknown in Great Britain.
That only changed in 2018, when the classic was first broadcast in Freddie Frinton's home country on December 31 - 55 years after it was first broadcast in Germany.
Although the black and white classic is an export hit, it has never been dubbed.
But it was replayed several times in dialect, including in Low German.
In 2016, the streaming service Netflix presented a new edition - however, Sir Toby, Mr. Pommeroy, Admiral von Schneider and Mr. Winterbottom were not invited, but some popular series heroes.
But like the guests from the original, they also shine through their absence.
Incidentally, the damage that butler James causes through his mishaps in "Dinner for One" would in reality cost Miss Sophie several thousand euros, as an insurance company once calculated for fun.
bam