The famous NDR television recording of Dinner for One was made in 1963.
Norddeutscher Rundfunk recorded the sketch at Studio B in Hamburg’s Lokstedt district between 30 April and 4 May 1963. It was filmed in black and white before a live audience, with the performance delivered in English and a brief German introduction.
The recording was not the sketch’s first appearance. British writer Lauri Wylie had created it for the stage, and Freddie Frinton and May Warden had performed it on British seaside piers. German entertainer Peter Frankenfeld and director Heinz Dunkhase encountered it in Blackpool and helped bring it to German television.
A common mix-up concerns 1972: that was the year the recording gained its regular New Year’s Eve television slot in Germany. The original NDR production itself dates to 1963, and it later became a major annual tradition across several northern European countries.