From popstar excess to parish priest, Richard Coles has come a long way. Samantha Laurie sounds him out
Nothing says Saturday morning quite like the genial tones of Reverend Richard Coles on Radio 4. Erudite and witty, he is the nation’s best-known celebrity priest – and certainly its only gay celebrity priest – and will soon be winning legions of new fans when he puts on his dancing trousers for this season’s Strictly Come Dancing.
“Cometh the hour, cometh the overweight vicar with arthritis in his knees,” is how he puts it.
But few guests on the Saturday Live chat show he co-presents have a back story quite like his. He shot to fame in the 80s as one half of pop duo The Communards; a public school boy from Kettering who came to London with a saxophone, a piercing and “a mission to defeat Thatcher with music”, joining forces with Jimmy Somerville to release a string of successful hits, including the biggest-selling single of 1986, Don’t Leave Me This Way.
“One minute we were living in a squalid flat in Kilburn, the next we were helicoptering into Glastonbury. I always think it’s like waterskiing – you stand up and just hold on while everything moves quickly around you.”
It would be something of an understatement to say that Coles's first book is not your typical vicar’s tale. A disarmingly frank memoir, Fathomless Riches begins with his leaving the family Christmas in search of sex in a lay-by, before hurtling through tales of casual sex, drug addiction, professional jealousies and the ‘heaped up grief and dread’ of AIDS. It’s a glorious read, interlaced with Coles’s exquisite humility. In Ibiza, as the band falls apart, he buys everyone in the villa an expensive designer shirt. "But they only looked nice on the beautiful boys," he writes, "while I looked like von Aschenbach on the Lido leaking hair dye and staring at them with desperate generosity.”
Fame was sudden, the pressures intense.
“The worst bit was my intense jealousy that Jimmy got more credit than I did. Also we had to DO so much. So much of being in a successful band is sitting in the back of a car on the A40.”
Harder still was the readjustment to normal life when, in 1988, it all came to an end.
“I remember being slightly outraged at the rudeness of people. In fact they were just being normal, but I had raised expectations; I was used to being indulged. Once I turned up at an airport expecting to be VIPed. There was this clatter of keys on the keyboard, and I think the phrase they used was NSFU – 'Not Suitable For Upgrade'. Very sobering.”
The Communards at Rome Airport
Amidst the turbulence of AIDS and the excesses of Ecstasy – “I’d taken so much speed for so long that my body was surprised to have to get through the day without stimulants” – he arrived at Christianity.
“Although I wasn’t religious as a boy, I was a chorister and grew up around chapels and cathedrals. I always had the sense that there were places you could take stuff that wouldn’t go anywhere else. Now I had stuff I wanted to take somewhere.”
A theology degree helped him find the content to match his yearning and he was ordained in 2005. His friends were bemused.
“One simply refused to hear the word 'theology' and insisted that I was saying 'geology'. Jimmy was extraordinarily gracious though. I wrote to him in San Francisco to tell him and shortly afterwards there was a dispatch rider at the door with a book of prayers for the lesbian and gay community, together with a card saying: ‘I don’t get it, doll, but good luck!’”
So Coles became an Anglican priest, first in London – he was one of the inspirations for the BBC sitcom Rev – and then at Finedon, a large village in Northamptonshire. His latest book, Bringing in the Sheaves, picks up the story, giving readers his distinctive insight into the life of a modern parson with comment and observation on religious history, ceremony and curiosities.
It’s another wonderful read, encompassing everything from the poignant back stories of complicated lives – like the Iranian refugee who wept throughout his wedding service, overwhelmed by the fear and horrors of his past – to the baptism of a billionaire's baby who arrived with stylist and make-up artist in tow.
“That’s the thing about the Church of England. We’re everywhere – we go from dealing with people whose lives are tough and destitute to those who use bling as a way of convincing themselves they’ve made the right life choices.”
Does having such a racy past help him relate to people?
“My issues around sexuality and out-of-control drug taking mean that I can level with people who bear the scars of life. Christianity is not to vanish into a cloud of niceness: it’s living fully awake in a world of reality. We’re imperfect creatures and the Church is here to engage with the real.”
Richard with his mum and Jimmy Somerville
Most often, 'the real' means mental health issues.
“People come to us in distress; there’s a lot of walk-in trade at a vicarage. And there are so many more people at large suffering with mental health problems because of the decline in services.”
Coles is in a civil partnership – his partner David is also a priest – mandatorily celibate to abide by Church guidelines.
“It’s depressing but not surprising that the Church is out of step with the wider world. Two thousand years of thinking homosexuality a sin, rather than a variation on the theme of being human, is not something easily overcome.
“I abide by the rules, but I don’t think that represents a settled status quo. Right now we’re at some sort of crisis in the Church: either we decide to be unchanging or we move forward and embrace something good and holy. It does sometimes enrage me but I try to focus on the good and the positive.
“Church attendance numbers are very sobering. But it’s a long game and we do have a chance to renegotiate and to make the case for Christianity as persuasively as we can.”
Given his TV and radio profile, Coles can do that more effectively than most. But how do his religious bosses feel about his searingly honest memoirs?
“I sent both my bishops a copy of my first book and they were immensely supportive," he laughs. "It’s usually my TV appearances that elicit complaints. My most trenchant critics are church people who feel my conduct unbecoming. The bishop describes them as a ‘small but fragrant clutch of complainers’.”
Fans of his gentle, affable banter on Saturday Live are unlikely to be among them.
“The show is not dissimilar to my priestly duties, creating an atmosphere in which people can recount their tales of adventure and misadventure. I love the relationship with listeners: people are getting up, stretching their legs, walking the dog. You become part of their Saturday routine and they like you by association.”
Strictly will bring greater exposure still, with Coles tipped to fill the 'Ed Balls slot' for likeability. That popstar magic can only be a PR win for the church. His bishops will be delighted.
- Rev Richard Coles is speaking about his life and his book Bringing in the Sheaves (published by Orion Books, £20) at Wimbledon Book Fest on Sat October 7, at 2pm (wimbledonbookfest.org). You can also see him on BBC's Strictly Come Dancing, every Sat evening
Check out our Interviews Section for more great local celebrity chinwags
You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter for updates on our latest articles
Sign up to our Weekly Newsletter for exclusive competitions, offers and stories
Looking to advertise your business in Surrey or SW London? Check out our 11 different lifestyle magazines with a combined monthly distribution of over 210,000
