New show Chasing Bono tells the true story of a failed rock star

Producer Sally Wood says her new stage show written by celebrated duo Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais is like “hearing a good story down the pub”.

The show, Chasing Bono, is based on journalist Neil McCormick’s memoir about his failed attempts to become a rock star... while his friend Paul Hewson changed his name to Bono and started U2.

Wood, 40, the wife of Rolling Stone Ronnie, met Clement and La Frenais — behind hits including Porridge and Auf Wiedersehen, Pet — at a Stones concert in Los Angeles. She said: “I asked ‘Do you have anything I could use? Have you got anything in a drawer?’ They came back to me with this in February.

“I read it straight away and said ‘I’d love to do it’. They said they really liked the Soho Theatre and I had produced Sadie Frost’s play there a few years back so I approached them and they said they had this slot and we could be their non-Christmas Christmas show.

“It is a good old Irish play, it is like hearing a good story down the pub and it’s just so enjoyable.” Wood added that part of the play’s appeal came from its take on the “very weird” issue of fame.

She said: “I know people from both sides, people who are famous and people who want to be. You often find people who think they want this fame, and the people who are famous, wish they were anonymous.

“The whole fame bubble is very weird and the grass is always greener.”

Chasing Bono is at the Soho Theatre from December 6 to January 19.