Fleapit revisited:Boiling Point (2019).

It's nearly Christmas and an unnamed head chef, everyone simply calls him Chef, is severely stressed out at the busiest time of the year. The relaxed ambience of the fancy restaurant he works for is at complete odds with the hectic kitchen that the one shot short film, less than twenty-two minutes, Boiling Point (BBC1/iPlayer, directed by Philip Barantini, written by Barantini and James Cummings, and originally aired in 2019) is almost completely set in.

We start in media res, at the heart of the maelstrom, as Chef (Stephen Graham) barks out orders to his staff, at times going full Gordon Ramsay as his team drop plates, turn up for work late, and have the gall to ask for time off. There's lots of swearing, staff members are threatened with the sack, and when he's not giving shit to people he's taking shit from his manager (Alice Feetham).

Chef has prepared a bespoke menu of mallard and mackerel but some of the diners, with their party hats on, just want - to Chef's obvious disdain - burgers. It looks like one of the worst places anyone could ever work and just to top it all off, Chef is surreptitiously necking vodka and snorting coke - with predictably disastrous results.

Graham is, as ever, excellent and he's ably supported by Jonas Armstrong, Andrew Ellis, and Hannah Walters as members of his team. I enjoyed this very short film but not so much that I can understand how it went on to spawn a later feature length film and now a television series. More investigation needed. I'll treat this film as a starter and go in for the main course when I'm suitably hungry.