Church in need of reform, says TV vicar Richard Coles ahead of Telford appearance

He has appeared on Strictly Come Dancing and is currently the host of The Big Painting Challenge – but when he’s not on television and radio, he is helping his parishioners.

Tonight he’ll be talking about his unusual dual life and what it took to get him there during an appearance at Telford’s Oakengates Theatre.

“The show is an account of having been in a band to being in the pulpit,” he said.

“People always ask about how it had happened and eventually it evolved into an entire show.

“There’s a dramatic conversion in the middle of it, but when you look back you see a pattern you didn’t see at the time.”

Richard, who is now vicar of Finedon, in Northamptonshire, rose to fame in pop band The Communards alongside Jimmy Somerville in the 1980s.

They had three top 10 hits, including Don’t Leave Me This Way which rose to number one and was the best selling single of 1986.

But it was in 1989 that Richard’s life took a turn.

“I went to church as a sort of curious spectator and came out a participant,” he said.

“Something just happened in the middle of the service. I just knew I was part of the club. I thought I was losing my reason. I went to see a psychiatrist and they told me to go and see a vicar.”

He said he fondly recalls his earlier, pop star life.

“It was so long ago I can barely remember it,” he said.

“There was a great excitement. All of a sudden to do something to impact other people. Waking up in the morning and discovering you’re number one. Being on Top of the Pops. Working with Jimmy Somerville was such an extraordinary experience as well.”

Today he tries to balance his life in the media with his commitments to the church.

“I manage it very badly,” he said. “I’m half-time in my parish, although really there’s no such thing as half-time because people don’t have half-time lives. Half of my time is work in the media. That’s what I always have done. And I try and fit everything in, although sometimes I don’t do it very well.”

He has most recently been on screens in The Big Picture Challenge, and last year appeared on Strictly Come Dancing.

But neither presenting nor dancing has triggered a change of career.

“The Big Picture Challenge was good fun,” he said. “It was a laugh. Apart from when the midge flew up my kilt.

“I’ve never really felt I’ve had a career in the sense of something you plan. Things just happen – I don’t think I’m going to be the next Ant.

“It was a fantastic, if brief time on Strictly.”

Approachable

Although the number of churchgoers is dropping, Richard said that individual churches are doing more than ever before.

Being recognisable from his work on BBC Radio 4 or the likes of Have I Got News For You and Would I Lie To You has made him more approachable to his flock, he said.

“It helps people approach. You can sometimes make a connection with people who wouldn’t always make a connection,” he said.

“If people come to church however, the novelty visit is not enough to turn that into commitment. Once they’re in the church you have to set out why it’s distinctive and important.

“There’s a lot of things churches do that aren’t celebrated. It would be quite misleading to suggest the church is not in crisis though. But out of crises new things can form, and we’re quite good at forming new things out of crises.

"We need to reform our relationship with the people around us. In the past the church was just there – it was just establishment. Lots of people like it being there, but in a picturesque relic. It has no future as a picturesque relic.”

Village

It’s not the first time Richard has been to Shropshire. During his visit to Telford he’ll be visiting a man who rehomed one of his dog’s puppies.

“I’m happy to be reconnected with them,” he said.

He said Shropshire was “proper deepest England”.

“A couple of years ago, I got a few days off and rented a cottage in deepest Shropshire where I’d never been,” he said. “I absolutely loved it.

“It was that stretch between Church Stretton and Ludlow. It’s like proper deepest England. I wondered about it, and I thought there’s no main roads in that stretch of Shropshire. You come across village after village that was pretty much unchanged. It was lovely.”