As a 37yo german, I've seen this now the 37th time in a row. I really cannot depict a new year's eve without this bit.

We have the same tradition in Denmark. Every single year. In 1985 they didn't show it and it nearly started a riot in Denmark.

As a German, I still can't understand why this sketch isn't popular in the UK. To me it's the epitome of classic British comedy, very much like Mr Bean, as you mentioned. Hopefully one day Freddy Frinton and May Warden will be as famous as they are in Germany at home, they really deserve it. Happy new year btw! 🥳

This is shown every year on Swedish TV as well. Not on every channel, but on one. I think one of the things that make the skit so popular in non-English countries is that you don't actually need to understand what is being said. The physical comedy is a universal language. Personally, I remember loving this skit ever since I was a kid, way before I was fluent in English.

In Denmark we watch it every New Year’s Eve. It’s a fun little tradition every year. Godt nytår! From Denmark 🇩🇰🎉

I think my generation here in Germany naturally got in contact with Dinner For One because our parents and grandparents watched it every year. As a now nearly 35 year old, watching this brings back some great memories from my childhood and my youth. Watching this while dad and grandpa were roaring with laughter, having a nice dinner afterwards, ringing in the new year with the whole family... So today I mainly watch it for the good memories, I have while watching this. It's like an old friend that visits you once a year and I still think it's funny as hell. Oh, and btw: I think Freddie Frinton's performance in this is outstanding!

Here in Denmark, it is a tradition 2 show it every year on New Years Eve, just before midnight...... Everybody is sitting in front of the TV and is watching it and they're laughing so hard every year 😀

A South African favourite as well. I just told my friend in the US the weekend before Christmas about this! It makes me cry from laughing every single time 🤣🤣🤣

I'm an "Ami" and I was introduced to this sketch during my years as an expat in Germany in the 1990s. And I still watch this every New Year's Eve. I like the way that, at the end of the sketch, the catch phrase, "The same procedure..." has a very subtle innuendo.😉 (I became fluent in German through my time in Germany. Working for a small German firm definitely helped.)

This show is a cultural treasure, and not just in Germany!

The sketch itself wasn't made for Germany, it was a stage play over a decade before one of the showings were recorded by a German broadcaster. In Sweden the German part with the narrator isn't shown.

As a Brit near 70 years old I remember Freddie Frinton from the tv of my youth. Back then there were variety shows on tv (like Sunday Night at the London Palladium) which were related to the previous generation of music hall shows where F.F. would have started out. He would do 'skits' rather than jokes as such, and they usually involved him playing drunk, often fighting with a cigarette. This is actually very 'him'

I've watched this every year for my entire life. In Norway it is shown on December 23rd as part of a TV-show called "Kvelden før kvelden" (the evening before the evening). It is an excellent piece of material, and makes for a pretty good christmas play. Two friends of mine put on a memorable version when I was in Junior High-School, which considering it features massive amounts of drinking and is essentially a giant sex-joke was a bit of a gamble :p

I'm an Aussie. My kids and I watch it every year as does my Mother - reminds us all of my late Nan who used to love it. It's a new years eve tradition.

In Norway, we send a variation of it. But we have it on the evening before Christmas Eve. It's a huge Christmas tradition here.

On why this was produced for German TV - they had to, because there was no other TV footage. The skit was a vaudeville piece from the 20s, and a German show host (kind of the Johnny Carson of German TV at the time) had seen Frinton do the skit in Blackpool and asked him to perform it in his show. The audience loved it, and they did a more elaborate production (which is the one you just saw) and that has been shown on all public regional channels in Germany (NDR = Norddeutscher Rundfunk = Northern German Broadcasting Corporation) ever since (source - German Wikipedia). Why was this a success? Well, in the 60s there wasn't much in terms of entertainment on German TV - two national channels plus one regional per region, and no broadcast between midnight and 8 am -, people loved it and asked for a rerun which they got, and a few years later it was already a tradition that one watched on New Year's Eve.

NDR (regional TV of northern Germany) recorded this in 1963 and afterwards showed it every New Years Eve. Meanwhile it is broadcast on NYE in all regional TV programs all over Germany.

Just wanted to say great job on understanding the German opening, Neil! That was more or less exactly what he was saying. :)

the piece is like an old relative coming home for Christmas. I saw it with my grandparents, with my parents, with friends and now with my nieces and nephews. This piece feels like a hug

It's also been a part of the Danish New Year tradition for longer than I've been alive. One year when I was in my late teens my friend group decided to follow along with James' drinking. And even though we didn't do it on an empty stomach, we still got to drunk to do much else that night.

It's a swiss tradition as well - I remember when I saw it first as a little kid, it had me rolling on the floor laughing.

It’s also shown in Sweden every New Year’s Eve for as long as I can remember. A classic 😊

The sketch may well go back to vaudeville theatres or to one of those variety theatres on amusement piers in Victorian Britain, but Frinton had to rights to it and performed it in Blackpool in the 1950s and early 60s. German entertainer Peter Frankenfeld saw him there and thought it would fit into his TV-show. Frinton was very reluctant to come over to Germany to play it there in a TV-studio in front of a real audience from TV-staff but finally agreed to do so. He came to Hamburg for the recording with his partner Warden and the tiger! The rest of the decoration was made or supplied by the TV-studio itself. The sketch was shown and vanished into the archives, just to be shown here and there again. Ideas to have it redone in colour were there but Frinton died before that could be realized. And then it was shown again more or less as a filler between two programs on Channel 1 some New Year's Eve and people wrote to German TV Channel 1 ( the North German branch to be precise) to show it again next year and that has never stopped. For most families New Year's Eve is not imaginable without watching Frinton stumbling over that tiger fur and drinking from that vase. The lady with the screaming laughter in the audience was from the office staff, her husband being one of the sound technicians. To my knowledge she is still alive. In a TV-talkshow she recalled that day and told that she was close to be shown out because of her screams, that would have been a very wrong decision. Her laughter is the cream in that cup of coffee. Most Germans are surprised to learn that Frinton is almost forgotten in Britain. His son gave the tiger fur to some German entertainment museum, by the way, to thank the German public for keeping the memory of his dad alive. The back of that head is patched all over. Nobody can say how many times Frinton must have kicked it during his long career. The information that it is shown on ALL German channels is a misunderstanding. Fact is that the sketch was shifted from nationwide Channel 1 to the many regional stations that together form Channel 3. And all of them do show it indeed. Some do so together at the same time, others vary from that. So with cable or satellite TV and the opportunity to get all Channel 3s you may watch it several times that day.

Happy 2023 Neil. The first time I watched 'Dinner for One' was when I lived in Germany - I continued watching it on New Years for the following six years that I lived there. Then I didn't see it again until 2018 when Sky Arts showed it on New Years Eve here in the UK. It brings back a lot of happy memories!

It's even funnier if you watch it every year because then you know what's coming and you have to laugh before it even happened

It is like you said: the kind of humour grandparents loved. They watched it every year and so did their children growing up and then their children, and their children... always on December 31th.

I love that more people get introduced to this short piece of comedy gold.

Theres another big german x mas tradtion show by Loriot. He is/was the master of comedy. its called "Weihnachten bei Hoppenstedts" i really hope theres a video with subtitles. you should check him out. he has done hundreds of sketches about family, misunderstandings, man-woman arguments, political sketches, everything. He was special, just like MJ was special with singing and dancing. ;)

I watched this reaction, having heard of the play via an Ex partner and then QI too. I’ve now watched the sketch 3 times since this video and I think it’s just perfect. The increasing slurring drunkenness permeating through his 5 different characters, the way the rug seems to outsmart him in a different way every time he interacts with it, Every time I see it I notice nice little details. Even the way those three little windows get smaller towards the back of the set to give the extra impression of depth. Right down to the cheeky hint of what’s going to happen when he takes her to ‘retire for the night’ and how it’s going to be ‘same procedure as last year’ 😂 considering what many people were laughing at in the 60s, it’s nice to watch something from that era that isn’t completely offensive, or just plain bad. Thumbs up from me 👍🏽

I just read a news article that said that there are plans to make a TV series set 20 years earlier where all of the characters are actually there. The creator said that they grew up watching this (as I have here in Sweden) and thinking who the different characters were and how it may have looked before their passing. I look forward to see how it will be portrayed. It's such a staple of new years for me and my family. Our tradition was to watch this before going out and firing off a ton of fireworks (fireworks are banned/require a license here in Sweden since a few years back) and celebrating with our neighbors.

It's not only in Germany... It's also shown in Sweden, Denmark, Finland, South Africa... and more... In Norway around Christmas.

Oh my god! How I love this sketch! I've been watching "The 90th Birthday" several times every New Year's Eve for over 50 years now - and I laugh my ass off every time... I know every gesture, every stumble, every "don't stumble" and every single word by heart ^^ I laughed the hardest when my then 4 year old son started acting out the whole sketch with his little table and chair and a teddy as Miss Sophie and the kids' crockery while it was on TV! The cutest thing I've ever seen ^^ (thank goodness I have it on video; now watching THIS version is also a firm tradition in our family...) I'm in tears every New Year's Eve: first from laughter, then from sheer emotion ^^ I love it!

Oh, so many childhood memories! 😂 Definitely worked without knowing English! It's a classic in Switzerland too. Glad you liked it!

As many others have stated this is also a Swedish tradition and I've loved it since I was a kid. It's just top notch slapstick.

Hey Neil, german fan here. I'm 39 so Dinner for One has always been there, but while older people and children certainly love it, as soon as you get a bitolder, there are those who absolutely must have it for their Silvester celebration experience and those who roll their eyes at it because most house parties are interrupted at least once for the skit and everybody knows it in and out. The narrator in the beginning explains the plot and while skandinavian countries often times have english originals with subtitles, Germany always dubs its programs, so this was kind of an odd one out, even at the time. There are so many dialect adaptations, for example where I come from, in the North, I once watched some kids who were learning the old Low German dialect performa version in that language. (Oh and I just checked the gay event planner for Berlin and there is a theater version on tonight with an older drag queen as Sophie ^^) I think the original was a skit classic performed and created by the two actors that a german tv producer just happened to watch once an brought with him. Hilariously only THIS WEEK it was announced, that the production company UFA Fiction will produce a prequel series, exploring Miss Sophie's relationships to her four dead friends...I... I just can't LOL. Anyway happy new year and Guten Rutsch (good sliding) as we say in german.

This used to be a tradition in South Africa as well. It was on every new years eve in the 80s and 90s on SABC.

It has been a long time tradition in Finland to show this comedy on TV around New Years. A couple days ago YLE, The Finnish Broadcasting Company, announced they will not show it this time. They did not want to pay for the rights anymore. But they had to change their decision after angry feedback.

NDR is the North German Broadcasting company (Norddeutscher Rundfunk), it's one of the many regional broadcasters that form the German equivalent of the BBC. Also the original is and old stage show you could see in Blackpool, a big holiday destination in England. Somebody from the NDR must have seen it there and they recorded it for TV.

Humans have always have always been humans and too often we forget older people can be just as wicked as we are. (The Same Procedure As Every Year, James ;) This reminded me of the 1944 Film Arsenic and Old Lace, another filmed stage play involving old people behaving disgracefully, with the situation just keeping on escalating to absurd heights. In Arsenic and Old Lace, Cary Grant plays the comedy Straight Guy, as the handsome adult Nephew fraught by his elders wreaking havoc around him until he is driven to exhaustion and to be a better person by their antics. Happy New Year!

Oh it's May Warden! Granny from the Billy Liar TV series, and the second Doctor Who companion to die in 1966. I don't know why Stephen Fry said people enjoy this ironically, it was a great performance by both actors and still seems fresh.

In Norway they show it on TV every year on December 23rd, as part of the program "Kvelden før kvelden" (The Night before the big night). In Norway we celebrate Christmas on the 24th, Christmas Eve. On Christmas Day we usually sit around at home watching TV and eating all day.

In Denmark it is show every year on new years Eve, its the last thing on before midnight, and i personally love it and laugh every time i see it.

There is a clip taken from the BBC on YT titled "The Dinner for One Phenomenon" where they tell about this German tradition, visit Freddie Frinton's family and show the skit to an audience at a pup. They filmed this version at the NDR (Norddeutscher Rundfunk / Northern German Broadcasting) studios and originally had no audience. Mr Frinton insistet on having a live audience, so the producers ordered every employee available to attend.

Here in Denmark it was named 90 års fødselsdagen /90th birthday.... im 58 now and i grew up with this classic, i still find it utterly hillarious, even though i know every word 🙂

It’s a tradition here in Norway as well, shown every year on December 23rd. 👍🏽

I would never have expected to see your reaction to this old classic, but I loved every second of it. And on the same day as my favourite episode of Avatar is just the perfect treat to celebrate this year👏 I love the fact that your mind immediately went to 'I have to show this to my parents'. It speaks volumes about you, one more reason to love your reactions. Thank you for all the laughs this year and a happy new year Neil 🎊🎉

I literally HAVE to watch it every year on New Year's Eve, at least once. I even watched it when visiting family in Canada. Some years I watch it multiple times, depending on my plan for the day/ night just to make sure that I really watched it at least once :D Often we also make a little drinking game out of it :D

Absolutely an unmissable tradition every NYE here in Denmark for decades as well.

What I find most amazing is that the actors were willing to come to Germany and make a German audience laugh. World War II was less than 20 years ago. Freddie Frinton and May Warden will both have lost friends and family in the war. It takes real greatness to stand in a theater and act happily, knowing that there in the audience might be the bomber pilot who destroyed your house or the soldier who shot your friend.

In Denmark its a new year stable - its tradition to see it every year just before the clock on the Copenhagen city hall strikes 24. We call it - " same procedure as last year". Its been a tradition since the 1970's 😉😘

This is on Danish TV every new year as well.

I watch Diner For One every year and still laugh, this sketch is simply timeless. Thank you for your reaction to this. Greetings from Hamburg Germany. Ich schaue mir jedes Jahr Diner For One an und lache immer noch, dieser Sketch ist einfach zeitlos. Vielen Dank für Ihre Reaktion darauf. Grüße aus Hamburg Deutschland

It’s an annual tradition in Sweden as well and has been for ages.

It works so well, because you don't need to understand anything to find it funny. So even small kids can watch it. And when you get older, you start to understand a bit, so you understand also a bit of the spoken jokes. And every time you watch it, you're one year older, and you see it a bit different, because you understand more. This goes on, until you're a teenager, or a young adult, and you finally understand the last joke, where you always wondered why the adults are laughing there. And obviously the 'Same procedure as every year.' fits perfectly for new years eve, because that's exactly what you are doing.

British humour is generally very popular in Germany. I watched this every year as well, so did my parents before I was born. James and Miss Sophie are legends. Glad to see you found the version that is shown on German TV. The production value is better in this one than in the other recordings of the show.

It is also a tradition in Austria for as long as I can remember (maybe 30 years?) to show this on TV just about 20 minutes before midnight on Silvester Eve ... and we watch it every time if we can! Some bars even show it.

We watched this every new year with our family. My grandmother and we children couldn't understand english at all (and didn't get the joke at the end) but we all still found this extremely funny. The narrator in the beginning translates what "Same procedure..." means in German.

It's realy a wonderful Tradtion in Germany for the New Years Eve. Everyone like it. It makes fun thw whole evening. You saw an older Version. And this is the better one. Because the scream of Miss Sofie was authentic. It was Freddy's Idea to tilt the chair. And May didn't know it. So she was very scared. In a later Version she knew it, so the Scream didn't sound unexpected. In the beginning a narrator explained the story. How did this celebration come about that all her friends are now deceased and James replaces them.

In Sout Africa they showed it on TV for many years. We all loved it.

Every new year since 1969 this has shown on Swedish TV and I don’t think I missed more then a handful and still it is as funny year after year. I start to worry that I been brainwashed after all this years so now I will check out your reaction and hopefully you find it funny…or else I’m just gone insane 😂

Hi... Switzerland here.... I am sure that you now know, why this became tradition every year.... same procedure as every year 🥰 have fun, all the best 2U, Nancy

I saw this for the first time today, and even though I hate humour I still had a fun time xD I couldn't stop laughing at your reaction.

I guess I don't have to explain how this skit came to German Television but there is a little "fun" fact to Freddie Fronton: Freddie really wasn't so keen of the German People (you know WW2) so he was a bit hesitant but ultimately did it! Another little fun fact: Throughout the Skit you hear a Woman laughing and it is getting louder and more hysterical. The NDR filled up the Seats with Staff! The Woman you hear is one of them and the higher-ups were close to throwing her out because of that laughter! I guess, the laughter of that Woman makes it even funnier than it is and we (Germans) couldn't do without that! Another fact: In most other countries where this Skit is shown they are showing some other version from Swiss Television Wich is, in my opinion, not only close to the standard of this (German) Version! The Swiss Version is on a little Stage and it doesn't resemble a Manor by any stretch of the imagination. It is basically cramped in a little Cabin in the Woods so to speak! If one would see the German Version you would love it but if you see the Swiss Version you might go "Okay, that was fun. Let's do something else!"! Even in Britain they are showing the Swiss Version and that is ridiculous if you ask me! You would want to show the best Version of this Skit right? (Without the first two or three minutes where the Narrator explains what's going on) In my now 50 Years on this Planet, I've seen it every single Year, sometimes several times at New Years! You know what's coming but you can't help yourself and laugh!

I love that you like 'dinner for one". I watch it every single "new years eve" and it'll not become boring. It is so nice that you as an american likes this kind of humor.

I watch that show every year sometimes even twice. It is so simple easy going fun.😂

This one is shown on german TV every year has a very contacious laughter in it, a little explaination in the beginning and has an overall slower and better matching pace. These things, the joke about gettin' drunk and the expression "same procedure as every year" makes it perfect for new years eve - especially if you are in a group of slightly tipsy people.

I well remember showing this to my 7 year old on new years eve. He hardly ever laughed that much and he really couldn't understand a word

So now you're stuck with the same procedure as every year. 😉 see you next new years eve!

Thank you for sharing this, Neil, it's my first exposure to "Dinner for One." I enjoyed it so much -- the repetition, the physical humor, the performances, the twist ending. Charming and very funny. :) Thank you again, and Happy New Year!

I used to watch this every year (Swedish tv) when I was younger, but in the past twenty or so years I've only seen it once. I watched it with some dircord friends a few years ago. But I don't remember crying from laughter like I just did! Maybe I should bring the tradition back into my life. It was great to see you experience it for the first time :D

This is huge tradition to watch in Norway as well.

Freddie Frinton who plays the butler is from my hometown of Grimsby North East Lincolnshire.

I've read somewhere that he was actually fluent in German and while he agreed to do the sketch for German TV, he insisted on speaking English after having fought in WW2 and still harboring some resentment there. Also, the whole Tiger skin rug was not originally planned but a happy accident. Which is insane because I cannot imagine the skit without it. As you say, it ties in so very well and adds so much. I came late to the tradition due to growing up in the east but now we watch it every year.

It´s not only in Germany i´m a 48 year old dane and i´ve seen it every new year since i was 7 and i know it´s also a tradition in Sweden and Norway

My Dad absolutely loves this. The repetition and the slapstick reminds me a bit of some scenes in Frasier.

I am Czech and I just love it, me and my parents watch it every year and it still makes me laugh!

I went to visit my niece in Cleethorpes on the East Coast of England a few weeks ago and stumbled upon a commemorative Blue Plaque honouring Freddie Frinton.

Like in Germany, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark proper, this is also a New Year's Eve tradition here in the Faroe Islands. I think however, that the skit shown here was from a 2nd recording, as the mannerisms and delivery of the lines is slightly different. Still hilarious though. :)

A german guy saw this in the uk, asked the stars to come to Germany, with the tiger, they filmed it a few times there, it caught on. We watch this in Aussie too.

Oh this is brilliant. We watch it every year as a family. My uncle (playing Miss Sophie) and great-uncle (playing James) used to tour the country (🇨🇭) with this sketch

Now we got it in many german dialects too, with other actors/comedians and german local celebrities!

I'm from germany and i really didn't expect you to watch this but it's an awesome surprise!

it has been so popular that the germans wanted to produce a few years later a coloured version. Everything was fine and ready to do as Freddy died...

„Same procedure as every year“ That’s how it became tradition watching it again every year.

It was a stage skit filmed many many times for a few different TV stations, so there are many versions, all authentic.

This is such a classic! Swedish TV also shows this every year. I hope your parents enjoyed it as much as you did. :)

South Africa too! Greetings and Happy New Year from Cape Town! PS We use Ouma and Oupa in Afrikaans also!

We have the same tradition in Denmark. We watch it every year almost without fail.

That comedy sketch is also popular, and shown in Denmark.....I am English, and I watched it (for the first time) over there when visiting my Wife's parents over the Christmas/New year in the early 80's. I had an absolute stinker of a cold with the usual blocked up nose....I laughed so hard I almost passed out from not being able to breathe properly.

Noises Off. Stars Michael Caine, Carol Burnett, Christopher Reeves, John Ritter and others... A MUST see movie... One of the funniest things I have ever seen. You'll have trouble breathing as you watch it you'll laugh so loud.

two german producers saw this on a british stage and invited the two stars to make this a short film in germany, it was shown on uk tv many years years ago

Tradition since 40 years. Can't miss it.

Oh fantastic that you've reacted to this. I did mention doing this in your community post so I'm ecstatic that'll finally get to watch it 20 years after missing it in Germany!

It's not just Germany. Scandinavia shows it too. I think it is pretty well known, other than in the UK.

“Dinner for one” has also been shown on Danish television for years. Probably matching the German number.

As a little child, this was my first introduction to the English language. Back in the days I couldn't understand as much as what the narrator explained and some words which sound somewhat similar to German, like white wine, fish ect. Nowadays my English is good enough to enjoy this short movie even more. Excluding the parts when James is drunk and starts to mumble. But I guess that's difficult for native speakers too. XD

I just love it! We watch in Denmark each year as well. Freddie Frinton is really doing such an amazing job here!

To understand this fully, you also need to know the structure of Germany's television at the time. There were a whole bunch of local TV stations (roughly one for each state) that had one regional channel each and provided one national channel together. In addition, there was a second (monolithic) national channel. On New Year's Eve, the two national channels had big live shows that spanned the whole evening, one targeted at an older audience and one for younger families. But the regional channels simply aired whatever taped (i.e. cheap/free) archive material they had that fit the occasion (i.e. short comedy for people who didn't want to follow a big show)---just one technician putting in the tapes and pressing the play button. Dinner For One was one of those cheap tapes, so it got chosen one year...and the following year and the year after, and there was the tradition.

It is not just in Germany. I am danish, and one of the two national networks in Denmark (DR), has broadcasted this every new years eve since sometime back in the 70’es as well. There were two years in late 80’s - early 90’es where they argued that the time had outlived the skit. But danes wouldn’t have it, but raised hell through viewer mails to the board of DR. So it was brought back, and has stayed as a regular program on NEE. It’s not really new year without it. 😂

We have this tradision in Norway as well. Every year on the 23th of Desember since 1980 :)