Richard Coles

The Rev Richard Coles is a broadcaster, writer, Vicar of Finedon in Northamptonshire, and thirty years ago was in the pop band The Communards, which makes him the only Vicar to have had a number one record.

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Richard Coles is a priest of the Church of England and Vicar of Finedon in Northamptonshire, where two of his ancestors were Vicars in the seventeenth century (the latter sequestered for malignancy). A quarter of a century ago he was in the pop band The Communards, which makes him the only Vicar to have had a number one record.

He has a parallel career in broadcasting and currently co-presents Saturday Live on BBC Radio 4 and appears, from time to time, on QI, Have I Got News For You, and Would I Lie To You. A contestant on Strictly in 2017 he scored a lamentably low mark for a Paso Doble his mother described as like “watching a walrus being tasered”. He writes for The Sunday Times Magazine and many other publications.

He has written half a dozen books, including a best selling autobiography, ‘Fathomless Riches’, and the number one bestseller ‘The Madness of Grief’ after the death of his partner the Revd David Coles, in 2019.

Richard is Patron of Greatwell Homes, a Housing Association providing social and affordable housing in east Northants, is Chaplain to the Leathersellers Company, and is Chancellor of the University of Northampton.

Combining hilarious and gritty stories from his time as a popstar in the 1980s, from Top of the Pops to the AIDS crisis, Reverend Richard’s eclectic past makes for an excellent after-dinner speech.