Transfer of Meaning
British comedy lives on in German television
Millions will be tuning in tonight to watch a vintage sketch that is unknown in the country of its origin
John Hooper in Berlin - Tuesday December 31, 2002
Millions of Germans and other continental Europeans will settle down in front of their TV sets tonight for what has become a New Year's Eve ritual - the showing of an aged British comedy sketch that is unknown in the UK.
Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR), the Hamburg-based channel which first recorded and broadcast Dinner for One in 1963, will show it no less than five times during the course of the evening in various versions - in the Plattdeutsch dialect of northern German, the original black-and-white and a computer-generated colour version produced two years ago in Hollywood.
The 11-minute sketch, acted by Freddy Frinton and May Warden, will also be televised by every other major regional channel in Germany and by at least one of the country's commercial channels.
"It usually has the highest rating of any programme shown during the year," said Jürgen Meier-Beer, NDR's head of light entertainment. "We have an average market share in our area of 8%. Dinner for One gets us up to 20% to 30% every time. We reckon that one in every two viewers in our area will watch it at some point on New Year's Eve."
If the viewing of Dinner for One is a ritual, then so too is the subject matter of the sketch. A lonely upper-class Englishwoman, Miss Sophie, hosts a dinner every New Year's Eve for her long-dead admirers: Mr Pommeroy, Mr Winterbottom, Sir Toby and Admiral von Schneider.
Her butler, James, makes his way around the table playing each of the guests in turn. As he does so, he drinks each guest's share of the wine, becoming more inebriated and familiar and repeatedly trips over a tiger skin on the floor.
The vital exchange is: "The same procedure as last year, Miss Sophie?"
"The same procedure as every year, James!"
When all the wine has been drunk, James accompanies his mistress upstairs to bed.
"By the way," he asks, "the same procedure as last year, Miss Sophie?"
"The same procedure as every year, James!" a delighted Miss Sophie replies.
The sketch is thought to have been put on in music halls in the 1920s, but its authorship is a mystery.
Freddy Frinton, who made it part of his stage act after the second world war, had to pay royalties for performing it until he bought out the rights in the 1950s. In 1962, he and Warden were touring the seaside piers with their act when it was seen by the German entertainer, Peter Frankenfeld, who invited them to perform the sketch on his show.
It was not until 10 years later that it became a regular feature of German New Years' Eves.
But what is it that so amuses the Germans?
Mr Meier-Beer pointed out that they were not alone in liking
Dinner for One, which had been sold to many other European countries,
most recently Estonia. "It must touch something in the continental
European sense of humour," he said. But one of the few countries
where the sketch had not sold was the UK, he added.
1. Was ist die Geschichte von 'Dinner for One' ?
2. Wieviele Zuschauer gibt es am Sylvesterabend ?
3. Was passiert in dem Sketch ?
4. Wie ist diese r Sketch nach Deutschland gekommen ?
5. Warum sind solche Ritualien so beliebt und wichtig in unserer Gesellschaft ?