The sketch concerns the elderly upper-class Englishwoman, Miss Sophie, who hosts a dinner every New Years' Eve for her long-dead admirers, Mr Pommeroy, Mr Winterbottom, Sir Toby, and Admiral von Schneider. She is served by her butler, James, who makes his way around the table playing each of the guests in turn, and consuming their share of the wine, becoming increasingly drunk and familiar, and also repeatedly falling over a tiger skin on the floor.
The vital exchange is: "The same procedure as last year, Miss Sophie?"
"The same procedure as every year, James!"
When all the wine has been drunk, James accompanies his mistress upstairs to bed.
"By the way," he asks, "the same procedure as last year, Miss Sophie?"
"The same procedure as every year, James!" a delighted Miss Sophie replies.
It is a curiosity that this sketch has become a tradition in Germany, where up to half the population may see it every year, but it is now almost totally unknown in Britain.
For a few years in the mid-1990s German television channels were available to British analogue satellite viewers, which meant that the new year screenings of Dinner for One could be seen in the UK by those few people who had access to German TV schedules. The replacement of analogue services by digital sadly put an end to that.
The sketch is available on VHS and DVD in Germany, but in an earlier version made for British television.