SOURCE: Raine, Nina. “Three Men and a Manifesto.” New Statesman 129, no. 4483 (24 April 2000): 43-4.

In the following review, Raine discusses the collaboration between Ali, Howard Brenton, and Andy de la Tour and the resulting play Snogging Ken.

Somewhere in Highgate, north London, three men are sitting round a kitchen table writing a play about the London mayoral election. One of them frets. One of them soothes. And one of them complains about ugly sentences. They are Andy de la Tour, Tariq Ali and Howard Brenton respectively.

I sit on the sofa, next to a pink book entitled Socialism and Democracy, an Arsenal scarf and a cap which claims that “Skateboarding is not a Crime”. We are in Ali's freezing cold kitchen. He doesn't switch on the central heating. There is silence, broken only by the soft plink of the laptop in front of de la Tour. Ali watches him...