Dinner for One, also known as The 90th Birthday, is a two-hander comedy sketch written by British author Lauri Wylie for the theatre. German TV station Norddeutscher Rundfunk recorded it in 1963, in English, with a short introduction in German. It has become a tradition to watch it on New Year’s Eve in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Estonia. Despite its popularity in other countries, it remains virtually unknown in the United Kingdom.
About Dinner for One in brief
Dinner for One, also known as The 90th Birthday, is a two-hander comedy sketch written by British author Lauri Wylie for the theatre. German TV station Norddeutscher Rundfunk recorded it in 1963, in English, with a short introduction in German. It is an 18-minute black-and-white videotape recording, performed by British comedians Freddie Frinton and May Warden. It has become a tradition to watch it on New Year’s Eve in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Estonia. The programme is now broadcast annually during the festive season on many TV stations across Northern Europe and Scandinavia, as well as Austria and South Africa. Despite its popularity in other countries, it remains virtually unknown in the United Kingdom, with its first national broadcast there airing on New year’s Eve 2018. Apart from a few satires, Dinner for One is not known in the U.S., where the comic premise had already been made famous by Red Skelton and Lucille Ball.
In 2003, the Danish TV producer Paul Anthony Sørensen directed and produced a documentary about the sketch. It was nominated for the Rose d’Or 2004. Some fans may watch it every year in German-speaking countries, where up to half the population may watch the sketch every year on New Years Eve. The sketch was staged in Frankenfeld’s live show soon afterwards, and recorded on 8 July 1963 in front of a live audience at the Theater am Besen at Besen, Hamburg. According to the DM 4,150 to the NDR 4.150, Frinton, Warden and were each paid DM to perform the show. The full 18- minute version is typically aired in Germany on Das Erste in the afternoon and the third channels in the evening. In 1972, it gained its spot on the German television schedule, and airs several times throughout the afternoon.
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This page is based on the article Dinner for One published in Wikipedia (as of Jan. 03, 2021) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
