Same procedure as every year!

In May 2023, King Charles III. visited Germany. At a state dinner, he gave a speech in which he thanked his guests for not leaving him alone with a “dinner for one”. Everyone in Germany got the joke. “Dinner for One” is a sketch that was recorded for TV in Hamburg in 1963: Miss Sophie celebrates her 90^th birthday with her four best friends. However, her friends all died a long time ago, so her butler James has to take their place. The sketch’s humour is centred on James having to empty all the guests’ glasses, getting very drunk over the course of the evening. And although the story has nothing to do with New Year’s Eve, it has still been shown on German TV every New Year’s Eve since 1972.

Many fans think that the sketch is very British. But hardly anyone in Britain knows it! It wasn’t shown on national TV there until 2018. In Austria and Germany, however, it is a tradition to watch it on New Year’s Eve. Its popularity is huge: on 31^st December 2021, 15 million Germans watched it. There is even a special stamp in honour of the popular sketch, which the German Postal Service brought out in 2018.

“Dinner for One” was first performed in 1934 in London. A few years later, in 1963, a German producer saw it on stage in Blackpool. He loved the show and brought the actors over to a film studio in Hamburg. The rest is history. Over the years, other countries have made “Dinner for One” part of their New Year’s Eve traditions: it’s been shown in Sweden every year since 1969 and in Australia since 1989. In 1988, “Dinner for One” entered the Guinness Book of World Records as the most repeated TV programme. A 2023 documentary tried to explain the sketch’s success. But fans don’t need an explanation – what better way to end the old year than with a laugh?