Reverend Richard Coles is coming to Oxford in early April to discuss his latest Canon Clement novella, Murder under the Mistletoe, as part of the Oxford Literary Festival’s well-regarded Crime Fiction programme. In fact, his popular ‘cosy crime’ series is just one facet of Richard’s impressive repertoire: he came to fame in the early 80s as one half of synth-pop band, The Communards, and then went on to become ordained as a Church of England priest. His other books include the bestseller, The Madness of Grief, written after the death of his partner Rev David Coles. Moreover, he is a familiar face and voice on TV and radio, most recently reaching the final of I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here.
I caught up with him over Zoom found him as charming and brilliant in conversation as he is on the telly. Also as self-deprecating as, in his words, he joined our video chat “lying down on the sofa like a lazy flop because I'm knackered. For good reason, I've just been out for big bike ride”. After he hastened to clarify that he rode an e-bike (so does that count? Yes), I cracked on with my questions…
What can Festivalgoers expect from your conversation with Triona Adams about Murder Under the Mistletoe – especially if they aren’t familiar yet with your books?
Well, I hope I'd be able to give them an arguable reason to get acquainted with the series. That would be nice. Sometimes people are a bit daunted because they think if they're coming halfway through, they've missed everything. Each book is intended to stand alone, although there are stories which extend across the whole series. I suppose it's a world that I think a lot of people might find familiar. Certainly, anyone who's had anything to do with the Church of England in recent years.
Your books fall into the ‘cosy crime’ category…
It's slightly misleading expression, popular at the moment, which I think is for the same reason that crime writing was popular in the late 1930s; the world is a darkening place, and I think that makes us anxious. Solving murder mysteries eases some of that anxiety. That's my theory.
Is life as a vicar in a quintessential English village actually that cosy?
If life is that cosy I suggest you're probably taking a palliative. No, it's not, I think cosy crime is two things. The cosiness refers to a world which is familiar. If you're a vicar of a country parish – I've been in other parishes, too – then people really do cycle to Evensong, there really is a fete every year. The Brownies come to church and all that reassuring pageantry of settled English life is there. But it's also a real world, and in that real world, people behave like idiots; they fall out and they get things wrong, and sometimes they murder people. When that happens, it's like a bomb going off.
Have you drawn on your own experiences?
Well, you find all human tragic comedy in its glory and in its awfulness. And that's fascinating. I was in central London before I went to my parish [Finedon, Northants], and everybody thought that I would just be doing village fates and school assemblies. I did both those things but there was also a murder in my first week. Things happen, and they happen everywhere – I'm trying to think how many murders I had to deal with: three that I know of, and then some others which I've got doubts about whether they were or not…
I understand Canon Daniel Clement, your Reverend sleuth, is coming to our TV screens.
Yes, he is. I've just been on the phone to Matthew Lewis, who's playing him, because they’re filming a burial today, and he wanted to know what he should hold. I'm having this fascinating job at the moment of helping a brilliant actor understand this character. And I also get daily reports on the appalling behaviour of the two dachshunds who are playing Cosmo and Hilda.
What are you working on currently?
I'm doing a non-fiction book at the moment about how different religions try to make sense of the big moments in our lives: initiation, marriage, death, that kind of thing. But also looking at why religion might be powerful and engaging in a world where most…don't have that [faith].
I've just come back from India, going to the most fantastic Hindu festivals, which have made me very badly want to be a Hindu. Looking at the universal themes – crossing the threshold to a sacred space, welcoming a child into the world, saying farewell to your parents – why do some religions do that in a way which people find completely captivating, and some in a way which seems marginal to the point of invisibility?
Does your faith give you a helpful perspective in these current times?
I think so. I think it allows you to think quite clearly about what evil might look like, and I hope it gives you some courage to resist it when you encounter it: it gives you hope, which is not the same as optimism.
Do you believe in evil?
I think I do. I have come to believe that there is something with agency that is malevolent and awful out there. I've seen people get gripped by it and undone by it. It’s often not people who you would think of as baddies, but people who tended to be undone by their own virtue that turns against them somehow. I think lots of crime writers probably have quite a lively sense of evil.
Talking of lively, you’re very active on Twitter/X. Do you find it very changed?
Well, it's got a load of rubbish in it now, because since Elon Musk took over, I'm having to filter out a lot of stuff. I'm not particularly interested in being made angry by people who want to poke me with a stick or insult me for liberal (what they call ‘woke’) views. I like people who talk about the weather or what they've heard on the bus or what they're cooking.
X always had the element of the bear pit about it ,but now I think that it's really cynically being used as a tool by Elon Musk to promote his view of the world, which I find very unsympathetic – but I'm damned if he's going to see me off.
I’m glad to hear it. It feels like you’ve carved out a very cherished and necessary niche as one of our accessible intellectuals.
I don't know. I mean, David [Richard’s late husband] described me as the poor man’s Stephen Fry, which was, well, which I think is probably a fair assessment, really. I mean, I'm not that clever. I know people who are clever, and I know I'm not…I think I'm relentless. I’ve always been really interested in how you take complex ideas and try to make them intelligible, which is partly the job of a vicar and partly the job of someone who's involved in pop music in the 1980s!
I'm sort of an in-between figure; I can be just as happy watching Arsenal at the Emirates and then watching the orchestra in the Age of Enlightenment at Glyndebourne. I could do both technically on the same day, if I had a helicopter. And I try to say yes to everything (unless I absolutely have to say no) because I wouldn't want to miss out on fun. And also, I don't mind if I make a complete ass of myself, either.
With that in mind, are you satisfied?
I'm much more satisfied than I've ever been before. But I think there is a restless part of me that is looking for something new or challenging.
Do you have any idea what might be?
I'd like to be better at what I do. I'd like to learn to yodel. I've always wanted to learn to yodel. The thing I'm doing at the moment, which I'm finding most absorbing, is playing the piano. I've got a piano teacher now and I’m going back to playing the pieces I played when I was a teenager. This morning, I was up before six, and I made some progress with a very difficult piece, and that's given me a feeling of satisfaction all day.
I have to ask you about going into the Jungle. Which of your campmates surprised you the most?
Colleen. I didn't really know anything about Colleen apart from Wagatha Christie. I didn't know any footballers’ wives, and I was a bit scared of her at first. I thought she might be a bit aloof, but actually she was shy. Then, as the numbers began to thin out a little bit, I think she was happier to join in. I was very impressed by her. She’s incredibly kind and humble, and devoted to her kids and her family. A real working-class hero, actually.
So you found I’m a Celebrity to be a worthwhile experience?
What I liked about being a vicar was you stand on the threshold between the ineffable mystery of God and the grain of people's lives. I love doing things like I'm a Celebrity, because lots of people watch it, and I like to be where the crowd is: I think that's good. If I were to be theological about it, I would think of Jesus's habit and his instruction that you go to where people are.
Reverend Richard Coles will be at the Sheldonian Theatre on Saturday 5 April at 10am. For more information about this and other Oxford Literary Festival Events, visit oxfordliteraryfestival.org
