Germany’s famous New Year’s Eve television sketch about an aristocratic birthday dinner is “Dinner for One.”
The English-language comedy sketch centers on Miss Sophie, who is celebrating her 90th birthday, and her butler James. Because her four regular guests have died, James performs their roles one by one, drinking each guest’s toast and becoming increasingly unsteady. The repeated line “The same procedure as every year” is central to the routine.
British performers Freddie Frinton and May Warden originally performed the sketch. German television recorded and broadcast it in 1963, and repeated annual broadcasts turned it into a New Year’s Eve tradition in Germany and several other European countries.
A notable cultural oddity is that the sketch is far better known in German-speaking Europe than in the United Kingdom, despite being performed in English. Its title refers to the dinner ritual, not to New Year’s Eve itself.