Dinner for One - Das Original

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. Frinton and Warden performed Dinner for One on stage on Britain's seaside piers as early as 1945.

In 1962, German entertainer Peter Frankenfeld and director Heinz Dunkhase discovered Dinner for One in Blackpool. The sketch was staged in Frankenfeld's live show soon afterwards, and recorded on 8 July 1963 at the Theatre am Besenbinderhof, Hamburg, in front of a live audience. The sketch was recorded in English with a short introduction in German.

It has become traditional viewing on New Year's Eve in European countries such as Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Estonia, and, as of 1995, was the most frequently repeated television programme in Germany history. Despite starting on the British stage, the sketch has only recently started to gain recognition in the UK.