Chasing Bono

Most Likely to succeed

It's 1987 and U2 are the biggest band on the planet, selling out shows, releasing lauded record after record and generally cementing themselves as the voice of their generation. It's natural that some onlookers may see their stratospheric rise and feel a quavering sense of envy, but perhaps not as much as Neil McCormick, a writer whose schooldays friendship with one Paul Hewson (or Bono, as he's more widely known) has destroyed his life.

Before the shades and the speeches, it was Neil, a talented songwriter and musician, who was going to become the superstar, it was he that was going to cast the long shadow, even classmate Paul thought so. But lady luck shined in the wrong direction and where Bono rose, Neil fell, hard.

An hilarious true tale, based on Telegraph music critic Neil McCormick's memoir 'I Was Bono's Doppleganger', a story of ambition, rivalry and failure, Chasing Bono comes to the stage this December courtesy of Porridge, Auf Wiedersehen Pet and The Likely Lads writers Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais.