The pencil thin line between success and failure is vividly illustrated in the 90 minute play CHASING BONO, which has just completed its run at London’s Soho Theatre on Saturday.

In the 1970’s, Neil McCormack and Paul Henson, schoolmates at Mount Temple Comprehensive in Dublin shared the same ambition, to form bands and become global superstars. Paul changed his name to Bono and formed U2. Neil didn’t. The latter, the Telegraph’s esteemed chief pop and rock critic, is a successful author, radio pundit and television presenter, none of which remotely compensates for being a failed rock star. It was probably worse for his brother Ivan, who was offered a spot in Paul’s band ‘Feedback’, renamed ‘The Hype’ before becoming U2. But Neil persuaded him to stick with his group for a guaranteed shot at stardom.

CHASING BONO was written by ‘master mirth-makers’ Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais (THE LIKELY LADS, PORRIDGE, AUF WIEDERSEHEN, PET and THE COMMITMENTS) and is a stage adaption of their darker 2011 film KILLING BONO, which in turn was based on Neil’s 2003 memoirs, ‘I was Bono’s Doppelgänger’.

Critic Anne Cox writing in StageReview said it was a “charming piece, packed with cracking Irish humour and good performances… part rock-fable, part whimsy and part ridiculous screwball comedy.”

The cast is lead by Niall McNamee as Neil and Shane O’Regan as Bono, with Denis Conway, Ciaran Dowd, Farzana Dua Elahe, Donal Finn and Niamh Bracken, all of kindly signed my portrait montage for me at the Soho.