A sharply drawn depiction of friendship under pressure, Nina de la Mer's startling debut channels the voices of two army chefs struggling to reconcile life on base with the off-duty temptations of the rave scene - with comic and poignant consequences. Set in the early 1990s on a British army base, 4 a.m. tells the story of Cal and Manny, soldiers posted to Germany as army chefs. Bored and institutionalised, the pair soon succumb to the neon temptations of Hamburg's red-light district...