- At Miss Sophie's 90th birthday dinner, her butler James must fill in for her four departed friends - and that includes lots of drinks before every course.
- The sketch presents the 90th birthday of elderly upper-class Englishwoman Miss Sophie, who hosts a celebration dinner every year for her friends Mr Pommeroy, Mr Winterbottom, Sir Toby, and Admiral von Schneider. (The plot has nothing to do with New Year's Eve. There is a "Happy new year" toast, but this is purely a reference to Miss Sophie's birthday.) The problem is that due to Miss Sophie's considerable age, she has outlived all of her friends, and so her equally aged manservant James makes his way around the table, impersonating each of the guests in turn. Miss Sophie decides on appropriate drinks to accompany the menu: Mulligatawny soup (Miss Sophie orders dry sherry), North Sea haddock (with white wine), chicken (with champagne), and fruit for dessert (with port) served by James, who finds himself raising (and emptying) his glass four times per course. That takes its toll, increasingly noticeable in James's growing difficulty in pouring the drinks, telling wine glasses from vases of flowers, and refraining from bursting into song. Even before the alcohol begins to exert its influence, he keeps tripping up on the head of a tiger skin lying on the floor between the dinner table and the buffet, although on one occasion he surprises himself by avoiding it.—Simon Slade
- An older Lady is having a birthday again and has invited four guests: Sir Toby, Lord Pommeroy, Admiral von Schneider and Mr. Winterbotton. The only problem is that the four have passed away long ago, and so the butler has to step in and help drinking all the sherry, wine and champagne served with the birthday dinner. He does a very good job on this and it seems that he also did a very good job for all the four guests after the dinner (upstairs).—Roman Fietze <fietze@kodak.COM>
- As the curtain opens, it is Miss Sophie's (May Warden) 90th birthday. Every year, James (Freddie Frinton) the Butler has prepared the meal and seated her beloved guests (Sir Toby, Admiral von Schneider, Mr Pommeroy and Mr Winterbottom). Unfortunately the last one died 25 years ago, but James carries on. Once Miss Sophie is seated, James serves the four courses (soup, fish, chicken and fruit) with accompaning beverages (sherry, white wine, champagne and port) whilst trying to avoid tripping over a large tiger skin rug located between the table and the cupboard. Since the four guest chairs are empty, James only serves food to Miss Sophie. The drinks are a different matter. In previous years the guests would each toast Miss Sophie, to keep the tradition alive, James proposes the toasts for the deceased guests. Four sherry toasts, four wine toasts, four champagne toasts plus a little extra, three port toasts and a cat contaminated water toast. Between each course, James asks Miss Sophie if he should follow "The same procedure as last year?". To which she replies: "Same procedure as every year." At the end of the meal, A very intoxicated James helps Miss Sophie to her feet and offers his arm. She takes it and starts to lead him up the staircase. He then asks: "Same procedure as last year?". Miss Sophie replies: "Same procedure as every year James." She smiles, he says: "I will try my very best." winks to the audience and the curtain closes.
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