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Dinner For One
How a TV sketch recorded in 1963 continues to cheer people around the world each NYE
As still-fashionable coronapanic means more people than ever before will be spending New Year’s Eve in their own homes and often therefore alone, it’s timely to mention an old TV sketch that has become increasingly popular over the years. Strictly speaking, Dinner For One isn’t actually about someone having dinner on their own; it’s about someone using their endlessly faithful servant to re-create past dinners when old friends were still present and not six feet underground.
The conceit is simple: Miss Sophie is celebrating her 90th birthday and her butler James facilitates her whimsy, which is to have James re-create in turn the personas of all her departed friends: Sir Toby, a curmudgeonly northerner; Admiral von Schneider, a naval toper; Mr Pommeroy, possessed of an astonishingly high-pitched voice; and Mr Winterbottom, a sozzled letcher and Miss Sophie’s “very dear friend.” The comedy comes from the fact that with every course served a toast is made in Miss Sophie’s honor. As she delicately sips from her glass the long-suffering James must drink copiously from all four of the supposed guests’ glasses. And thus as the sketch proceeds, James becomes more and more inebriated while Miss Sophie appears to notice nothing amiss.
