British TV comedy Dinner for One is getting a spin-off collection in Germany, with the nation’s most well-known movie studio producing six model new episodes.
Beloved in Europe however nearly forgotten within the UK, the Sixties sketch present sees Dplaying a butler to Might Warden’s Miss Sophie, an higher class English girl.
The ten-minute black-and-white routine is a few 90-year-old girl who’s unaware that 4 of her shut male associates have died.
Every year she invitations them spherical for a birthday dinner, forcing her butler, James, to run across the desk pretending to be her visitors as he will get more and more drunk.
The brand new collection shall be a prequel to the unique cult basic and star Alicia von Rittberg, 30, as Miss Sophie.
British comedy sketch Dinner for One, which is little-known within the UK however is massively well-liked in Germany and Scandinavia, has change into a New 12 months’s Eve staple for thousands and thousands
The brand new mini-series is ready to star Alicia von Rittberg (pictured)
It’s set to air on Amazon Prime on the finish of 2025 and would be the first new materials in lots of many years.
Provisionally titled Dinner for 5, it’s going to characteristic a cash-strapped Miss Sophie on the hunt for a husband on the age of 39.
The invitations 5 bachelors to her fort for dinner however one is them is murdered underneath mysterious circumstances.
It’s prone to be successful in northern and central Europe, the place the 60-year-old farce stays well-liked to this present day and is broadcast each New 12 months’s Eve in Germany and Scandinavia.
It’s estimated that 11.7 million folks in Germany noticed it throughout a dozen completely different channels on the New 12 months’s Eve simply gone.
The present is so ubiquitous in Germany that the catch phrase, “Identical process as yearly?”, has entered the favored lexicon within the nation.
That is all regardless of the programme being banned in Sweden till 1969 for that includes heavy consumption of alcohol, and Grimsby-born actor Freddie Frinton hating Germans a lot he refused to talk the language on display.
Dinner for One initially toured provincial theatres within the late Nineteen Fifties and was later recorded for TV in 1963.
Dinner for One stars Might Warden (proper) as Miss Sophie, an higher class English girl, and Freddie Frinton (left) as her butler, James
James inpersonates Miss Sophie’s 4 associates, who she does not realise are useless, and goes about consming all their drinks over 4 programs; mulligatawny and sherry, North Sea haddock and white wine, rooster with champagne, and fruit and port. As he turns into increasingly more drunk, the butler slurs his phrases and repeatedly stumbles over a tiger head rug
Dinner for One, which is often known as The ninetieth Birthday (Der 90. Geburtstag in German), was initially written by British writer Lauri Wylie for the theatre.
As its recognition within the UK waned, it took off in West Germany, spreading so far as Australia, Finland and the Faroe Islands.
It sparked a cultural phenomenon on the continent, with cookbooks and even a commemorative stamp being launched.
At one level within the late Nineteen Eighties, the Guinness E-book of World Data named it the preferred present in TV historical past.
Then, in 2003, it entered the guide because the most-repeated tv present of all time, the identical yr it aired 19 instances on completely different stations in Germany.
The brand new mini-series is being filmed on the Babelsberg studios on the Western outskirts of Berlin by the UFA, a manufacturing firm that has formed German cinema because the Weimer period with movies comparable to The Blue Angel and Fritz Lang’s Metropolis.
The star of the brand new collection, Ms Rittberg, who’s descended from aristocracy, is greatest identified for her position as a nurse in Charité, a profitable TV drama about one among Germany’s main analysis hospitals on the finish of the nineteenth century.
Frinton purchased the copyright for it from Wylie after which started performing it in 1945, initially with Warden’s daughter, Audrey Maye.
Earlier than every course, James asks his employer if will probably be the ‘similar process as final yr, Miss Sophie?’ She replies every time: ‘The identical process as yearly, James.’ The pair repeat the alternate for a closing time when he follows her as much as mattress on the finish of the night, with James including: ‘Properly, I will do my highest’
The brand new Miss Sophie, Alicia von Rittberg (pictured), is descended from aristocracy
German producer Peter Frankenfeld then got here throughout it whereas scouting for concepts in Blackpool and invited Frinton to carry out it on display in entrance of a reside TV viewers.
For the TV model, Audrey was changed together with her mom, who was 72 on the time.
The present aired for the primary time on German station NDR in March 1963.
Nevertheless, Frinton’s dislike of Germany meant that he refused to talk in German when impersonating one of many absent visitors, Admiral von Schneider.
As an alternative, he spoke in Swedish. The opposite non-existent banquet members have been named solely as Mr Pomeroy and Mr Winterbottom.
In addition to consuming profuse quantities, James goes about consuming all their drinks over 4 programs: mulligatawny and sherry, North Sea haddock and white wine, rooster with champagne, and fruit and port.
As he turns into increasingly more drunk, he slurs his phrases and repeatedly stumbles over a tiger head rug.
Two variations – an 11-minute one and an extended one lasting 18 minutes – have been launched.
The interactions of the characters, performed by comic Frinton and Might Warden, sparked a cultural phenomenon on the continent, with cookbooks and a even commemorative stamp being launched
Alicia von Rittberg (pictured) is greatest identified for her position as a nurse in Charité, a profitable TV drama about one among Germany’s main analysis hospitals on the finish of the nineteenth century
The present turned successful after being proven on German TV at 7.40pm on New 12 months’s Eve to fill a niche in scheduling, and has been on yearly since then.
In addition to being successful in Germany, it’s well-liked in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Switzerland, Belgium, Luxemburg, Estonia, Austria and even Australia.
The skit is so well-liked that broadcasters guarantee it’s proven a number of instances all through the day so that everybody has an opportunity to observe it.
Earlier than every course, James asks his employer if will probably be the ‘similar process as final yr, Miss Sophie?’
She replies every time: ‘The identical process as yearly, James.’
The pair repeat the alternate for a closing time when he follows her as much as mattress on the finish of the night, with James including: ‘Properly, I will do my highest’.
The allusions to intercourse have been mirrored by Frinton and Warden’s alleged real-life affair.
Extra adventurous viewers who watch the sketch, which is broadcast in English however has a brief introduction in German, will attempt to sustain with James’ consuming.
The present is proven on New 12 months’s Eve yearly in Germany and Scandinavia. (Pictured: Butler James suggestions again his boss’s chair)
Frinton, who died in 1968, was well-known in Britain. (Pictured: The comic on the Each day Mail’s Very best Dwelling Exhibition with actress Thora Hird in 1965)
In 1997, Germany’s conservation ministry complained about the usage of the stuffed tiger that options, saying it was ‘not a good suggestion’
There are even eating places that permit diners to eat the identical factor as James and Miss Sophie.
Nevertheless, the sketch has attracted controversy too.
In 1997, Germany’s conservation ministry complained about the usage of the stuffed tiger that options, saying it was ‘not a good suggestion’.
And the Gray Panthers, a militant pensioners’ organisation in Germany, stated it was upset due to the implied ‘old-age intercourse’.
Nevertheless, the controversy didn’t cease Germany’s then chancellor Angela Merkel from praising the present in her New 12 months’s speech in 2012.
Frinton, who died aged 59 from a coronary heart assault in 1968, was well-known in Britain, having starred in BBC present Meet The Spouse.
However he was additionally massively well-liked along with his drunk comedian skit, which noticed him put on a prime hat and tails and carry a damaged cigarette.
Warden died aged 87 in 1978.
Dinner for One aired within the UK for the primary time in 2018, when it was proven on Sky Arts.
