Every year, “Dinner for One, or: Miss Sophie’s 90th Birthday” puts the TV audience in a champagne mood on New Year’s Eve. In the sketch recorded in 1963, Miss Sophie (May Warden) celebrates her 90th birthday and has invited her four best friends. The only problem is that her guests have all already died. Since Miss Sophie is almost blind, butler James (Freddie Frinton) takes on the roles of the deceased, which ends in the house help getting drunk.
1. The author was no longer able to witness the success.
British author Lauri Wylie is said to have written the sketch in the 1920s. He later sold the rights to the piece to the comedian Freddie Frinton, who performed it together with May Warden in the English variety theater “Winter Gardens” from 1945. Wylie died impoverished in 1951 in a mobile home that served as his home.
2. “The Butler” didn’t want to come to Germany.
The German director Heinz Dunkhase and the comedian Peter Frankenfeld became aware of Warden and Frinton and wanted to win the actors for their recording “Good Evening, Peter Frankenfeld”. Frinton hesitated because he hated Germany because of his time as a soldier in the Second World War. Finally he was able to he was persuaded to come to Hamburg together with “Miss Sophie” May Warden.
3. Tiger instead of polar bear
On July 8, 1963, the laugh track was recorded by NDR. During filming, the prop masters prepared a polar bear skin. Freddie Frinton refused to work with it. He practiced the stumbles at exactly the height of a tiger’s head; the circumference of a polar bear’s head would just unsettle him.
4. Eleven stumblers
In total, Butler James trips over the tiger carpet eleven times. By the way, it is now in Frinton’s son’s house.
5. In the New Year’s Eve program since the 1970s
“Dinner for One” was shown for the first time on New Year’s Eve in 1972, but only on NDR. From 1976 onwards, Austria took over the sketch and, with ORF, the Netherlands, Norway, Finland and Denmark.
6. No “Dinner for One” in Sweden
The Swedes took a six-year break from “Dinner for One” because the dinner of the lonely, wonderfully confused lady, hosted by the increasingly drunk butler James, was suspected of inciting alcohol abuse.
7. Not a drop of alcohol
In fact, Freddie Frinton was never drunk in his life. The actor didn’t touch a drop of alcohol. There was only juice in the glasses on stage.
8. Brits don’t know the play
Today, “Dinner for One” is broadcast in more than 20 countries – from Australia to Spain. Curiously, the piece is completely unknown in England.
9. More than 2000 euros in damage
The insurance company “Allianz” calculated the damage caused by Butler James in the piece. Accordingly, the clumsiness of the drunk servant caused damage of at least 2,120 euros. The most expensive item is the tiger skin with repair costs of around 2,000 euros. “The reason for this is the new stuffing and a possible dental adjustment of the animal,” says “Allianz”.
10. World record
The sketch was officially entered into the Guinness Book of Records in 1988 – as the world’s most-repeated television show.
“Dinner for one”: original text for reading
