Dinner for One is the German New Year's Eve television comedy that was made in Britain.
The sketch stars Freddie Frinton as a butler serving an absent hostess, played by May Warden, at her 90th birthday dinner. The butler repeatedly drinks the toasts intended for four missing guests, producing the sketch’s famous recurring line, “The same procedure as every year.”
Although the performance is in English, the program became a major German New Year tradition. German television recorded the best-known version in 1963, and it has been repeatedly broadcast around the end of the year. Its popularity is especially notable because the sketch was not originally a German production.
The title can be misleading for international viewers: the story concerns a birthday dinner, not New Year’s Eve itself. Its New Year association comes from decades of scheduling by broadcasters, particularly in German-speaking countries.