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December 31, 2023… #movieoftheday is Dinner for One (1962).
“Dinner for One , also known as The 90th Birthday (German: Der 90. Geburtstag ), is a two-hander comedy sketch, written by British author Lauri Wylie for the theatre. After featuring on the stage, the German TV broadcaster, Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR), recorded the sketch in 1962 as an 18-minute black-and-white videotape recording, performed by British comedians Freddie Frinton and May Warden .
It has become traditional viewing on New Year's Eve in European countries such as Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Estonia, or on December 23 in Norway, and, as of 1995, was the most frequently repeated television program in Germany. Despite starting on the British stage, the sketch has only recently started to gain recognition in the UK. It was broadcast on New Year's Eve in Britain on Sky Arts from 2018 to 2020.
In other parts of the world, the sketch is broadcast in Australia and South Africa. Apart from a few satires, Dinner for One is not known in the United States, where the comic premise had already been made famous by Red Skelton and Lucille Ball . The article " Dinner for One : The greatest cult film you've never heard of," published in 2018, investigates the reason for its obscurity in the US.
In 2003, Danish TV producer Paul Anthony Sørensen directed and produced a documentary about the sketch that includes interviews with relatives of Freddie Frinton and May Warden. It was nominated for the Rose d'Or 2004.
PLOT
Heinz Piper introduces the story as the conferencier : Miss Sophie (Warden) is celebrating her 90th birthday. As every year, she has invited her four closest friends to a birthday dinner: Sir Toby, Admiral von Schneider, Mr. Pomeroy and Mr. Winterbottom. However, she has outlived all of them, requiring her butler James (Frinton) to impersonate the guests.
James not only must serve Miss Sophie the four courses à la russe – mulligatawny soup, North Sea haddock, chicken and fruit – but also serve the four imaginary guests the drinks chosen by Miss Sophie (sherry, white wine, champagne and port wine for the respective courses), slip into the role of each guest and drink a toast to Miss Sophie…" - more at Wikipedia .
📢 HAPPY NEW YEAR!
#DinnerForOne #Wikipedia #tangled
“Dinner for One , also known as The 90th Birthday (German: Der 90. Geburtstag ), is a two-hander comedy sketch, written by British author Lauri Wylie for the theatre. After featuring on the stage, the German TV broadcaster, Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR), recorded the sketch in 1962 as an 18-minute black-and-white videotape recording, performed by British comedians Freddie Frinton and May Warden .
It has become traditional viewing on New Year's Eve in European countries such as Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Estonia, or on December 23 in Norway, and, as of 1995, was the most frequently repeated television program in Germany. Despite starting on the British stage, the sketch has only recently started to gain recognition in the UK. It was broadcast on New Year's Eve in Britain on Sky Arts from 2018 to 2020.
In other parts of the world, the sketch is broadcast in Australia and South Africa. Apart from a few satires, Dinner for One is not known in the United States, where the comic premise had already been made famous by Red Skelton and Lucille Ball . The article " Dinner for One : The greatest cult film you've never heard of," published in 2018, investigates the reason for its obscurity in the US.
In 2003, Danish TV producer Paul Anthony Sørensen directed and produced a documentary about the sketch that includes interviews with relatives of Freddie Frinton and May Warden. It was nominated for the Rose d'Or 2004.
PLOT
Heinz Piper introduces the story as the conferencier : Miss Sophie (Warden) is celebrating her 90th birthday. As every year, she has invited her four closest friends to a birthday dinner: Sir Toby, Admiral von Schneider, Mr. Pomeroy and Mr. Winterbottom. However, she has outlived all of them, requiring her butler James (Frinton) to impersonate the guests.
James not only must serve Miss Sophie the four courses à la russe – mulligatawny soup, North Sea haddock, chicken and fruit – but also serve the four imaginary guests the drinks chosen by Miss Sophie (sherry, white wine, champagne and port wine for the respective courses), slip into the role of each guest and drink a toast to Miss Sophie…" - more at Wikipedia .
📢 HAPPY NEW YEAR!
#DinnerForOne #Wikipedia #tangled
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I discovered Dinner for One on YouTube during the COVID-19 lockdown and was intrigued that it wasn't known in the UK. Happy New Year to you.
