Michael Kimmel, the creator of the Jeff Buckley musical, The Last Goodbye, has told Hot Press that he'd love to collaborate with U2. The Last Goodbye is a musical adaptation of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, using the music of Jeff Buckley. It has been critically well received in the US originally launching in 2010 and playing to sell-out houses at the Williamstown Theatre Festival. It is set to run in The Old Globe in San Diego, opening this September.

Now the man who dreamt up the synergy of Jeff Buckley and Shakespeare has set his sights on a potential link-up with the biggest band in the world.
"The U2 album that I think would lend itself best to a theatre, and for me personally is so powerful, is Achtung Baby," he told Hot Press. "I don't have a show that I am working on, by the way, but it is an album that I cherish. It has such a huge range and the thought of working and adapting a piece like that for theatre would be such an exciting prospect indeed."
Michael has long been a fan of U2, and also of Ireland, describing Dublin as his favourite European city.
What did he make of Spiderman: Turn Off The Dark – the successful Broadway musical, for which Bono and Edge wrote the music?
"U2 are one of the most successful bands in the world," he said, "and Spiderman is obviously a huge popular cultural figure. So anytime you have two huge things like that coming together, to get people to come and see live theatre, I think its wonderful."

The full interview will appear in in the next issue of Hot Press.