Anthony Bourdain's no holds barred exposé of the restaurant trade. A high octane culinary adventure set in New York, dramatised by Marcy Kahan.

Kitchen Confidential was a sensation on publication in 2000, taking the reader right to the heart of a sweaty, noisy, fast and furious cooking station with a fiery, likeable anti-hero protagonist. This radio dramatisation is a full-on behind the scenes tour of a range of kitchens, which questions why anyone would want to lead the exhausting, adrenalin-fuelled, harsh and precarious life of a restaurant chef. Marcy Kahan's clever dramatisation brings out the tenderness and real passion of its writer, as well as his high-octane roller coaster career.

Episode 2: The Line
Bourdain drifts back to 1973 and his summer at the Cape Cod joint where he started out as bottle washer and skivvy, graduating to being the salad maker alongside a bunch of stoned, metal head, summer season outlaw chefs - a training that took him next to New York.

The dramatist Marcy Kahan is an award-winning radio and theatre playwright and screenwriter. Her plays include 20 Cigarettes (Soho Theatre, 2007), a stage version of Nora Ephron's When Harry Met Sally (Theatre Royal, Haymarket, 2005) and Intimate Memoirs of An Irish Taxidermist (Perrier award, 1986 Edinburgh Festival). Marcy's screenplay Antonia and Jane was the first television film to be given cinematic distribution by Miramax and won a Gold Plaque award for best original screenplay at the 1991 Chicago Film Festival.

Anthony Bourdain .... Michael Esper
Dimitri .... Sargon Yelda
Mother .... Barbara Barnes
Tyrone .... Ewart James Walter
Chef .... David Carlyle

Dramatisation: Marcy Kahan
Sound Design: Eloise Whitmore
Producer: Polly Thomas
Executive Producer: Robert Abel

A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4, first broadcast in May 2017. Show less