The title of Reverend Richard Coles’ new touring show, Borderline National Trinket, comes from something his late husband David heard at a party.
“Somebody in his earshot described me as in danger of becoming like a national treasure,” recalls Coles. “David responded by saying I was more like a borderline national trinket. It’s an epithet he bestowed upon me.”
The Reverend has had what he describes as “a bumpy year”, although he means that largely in a good way. “It’s been a very good year,” he says. “I’ve been busy with the book (A Death in the Parish, his second mystery novel in as many years), that was gratifyingly well-received. I’ve been on tour for what feels like ten years but was actually about three months, and I met somebody. I have a new relationship.”
Major life changes
David died suddenly in 2019, but now Coles has a new partner, which he seems over the moon about. It’s the second major life change in as many years. In 2022, after 11 years, he retired as vicar of St Mary the Virgin in Finedon, near Peterborough.
“Now I’ve stopped vicaring you’d think I’d have acres of time left, but it’s like the M25, isn’t it?” he says. “Traffic expands to fill capacity. I’ve been busy, but when I’ve had a minute at home to myself, I quite like to just play the piano.”
This is, of course, another of the many strings to his bow. Although these days he lives a rural village life in East Sussex, not far from what he calls “the fleshpots of Eastbourne… actually, they’re mostly kebab shops”, Coles was once one half of the Communards alongside Jimmy Somerville, which gave him a pretty exciting life of pop stardom in the 1980s. It’s from this unusual juxtaposition that the show flows.
‘We’ve walked through life together’
“People seem to be curious about how someone went from being a pop star in the ‘80s to being a parish priest to being whatever I am now,” he says. “This is really an attempt to give an explanation of that. I want to find out what the audience thinks, so part one is me saying what I think it is, and part two is the audience saying what they think it is.”
He gets asked all manner of questions, but he says not even the expected ones – like “who was the worst behaved pop star of the 1980s?” – are mundane. “Quite a lot of the time people ask what look like simple questions, but are actually quite complicated ones about how you try to hang on to faith in a world where that’s becoming harder.
“Lots of the audience were listening to the music I was in the 1980s, we’ve walked through life together and they’re now the same age as me. It’s nice to come together and reflect on how we got to where we’ve got to.”
There are surely very few other crowds which blend religion with the secular world of pop so convincingly. Maybe U2’s, perhaps? “Ah, but both audiences can surprise you,” says Coles. “I mean, running a church is a nuts-and-bolts business too, you’ve got to pay the gas bill, while a lot of people, I think, are drawn to music because they like its capacity to open up the sense of other realities beyond the present one.”
‘I’m happy when I’m in Scotland’
Does he ever miss being a pop musician? “Not really,” says Coles. Partly because I’m not the person now that I was 30 years ago, and partly because I can’t remember any of the songs anyway. What I miss is the connection you get with a crowd, which can be very powerful and exciting, but I had the great good fortune to have Jim Somerville singing. And Jimmy was such an exciting and surprising and brilliant performer, that I feel sometimes like a jockey that’s lost his racehorse.”
In 2017 Coles was a contestant in Strictly Come Dancing. Musician, author, vicar, television personality… does he have any other ambitions to fulfil? “Have I left it a bit late to start a career in Premier League football?” he laughs. “I probably missed that boat. I would like to spend a bit more time at home, I’ve got a garden that I’ve not yet got to grips with. Play the piano more, play with the dogs more.
“This might sound like I’m trying to ingratiate myself with people north of the border, but I’ve also been looking perhaps for somewhere to make a bit more permanent, and Scotland is the only other place I’d consider. My mother grew up in Fife, in St Andrews, and I come up to the Kintyre peninsula every year. It’s very beautiful, I’ve been going for a long time, I know people there. I’m just very happy when I’m in Scotland.”
Borderline National Trinket with the Reverend Richard Coles is at the Tivoli Theatre, Aberdeen, Monday, January 15; Eden Court, Inverness, Friday, March 1. For more information go to richardcoles.com
