Served up at last, British sketch that had Germans in stitches for 50 years
European festive favourite Dinner for One gets first UK premiere after being a hit abroad for decades
EVERY New Year’s Eve, millions of viewers gather around their TV to watch the British comedy classic, Dinner For One.
Starring Freddie Frinton, it is so popular that it holds a Guinness World Record for the number of times it has been repeated.
Yet chances are you will never have heard of it because Dinner for One is broadcast in Germany, and has been every year since 1972.
It is also traditional festive viewing in Denmark, Sweden and several other European countries, where audiences howl with laughter at Frinton’s slapstick performance.
And yet it is virtually unknown in Britain. But that will change this weekend as it is premiered at a comedy film festival at the Campbeltown Picture House on the Mull of Kintyre.
The screening is a posthumous honour for Frinton, a musical hall star who is a household name in several countries but not his own. He died in 1968, leaving a wife and four children.
The 18-minute sketch was written by Lauri Wylie and Frinton performed it in seaside theatres from the 1940s.
A German director saw it on stage in 1961 and invited Frinton to record it in front of a studio audience in his homeland. He plays James, a butler serving dinner to his employer, Miss Sophie, played by British actress May Warden.
The other guests – Admiral von Schneider, Mr Pomeroy, Sir Toby and Mr Winterbottom – are absent, and James impersonates each of them while downing their drinks. By the end of the evening, he is royally intoxicated.
His son, Mike Frinton, said the “quintessentially English” sketch translates to every country. “For many years we had no idea it had become so popular in Germany,” he said.
“Apparently it was first shown when they needed to fill a gap between programmes, and the next year it stayed in that slot. When they tried to take it off air a year or two later, there were protests,” he said.
“My dad loved performing this sketch. It’s wonderful to see it play in the film festival. It makes us so proud that, finally, this perfect example of comedy timing can be appreciated over here,” he added.
Ailsa Mackenzie, the festival organiser, said: “We watched it and just fell about laughing. Freddie was a comedy genius and the timing in this film is perfect. He doesn’t miss a beat.”
Frinton, from Grimsby, found TV fame as Thora Hird’s husband, Freddie Blacklock, in Meet The Wife, the 1960s sitcom, but his other work is less well known. Dinner for One holds the Guinness World Record for most annual airings of a TV comedy sketch, as it has now run in Germany for 45 years.