The Reverend Richard Coles is back on tour with his ‘Borderline National Trinket’ show and talks to us from his home in Sussex where he’s “the only person in the village who hasn’t won a BAFTA”. This looks back at his life – “a CV like the work of a fantasist” - and what he’s learnt from 50 years of watching various types of stage entertainment and playing to audiences ranging from the Wollaston Over-‘60s Methodist Ladies Fellowship to a bunch of delinquent Spanish pop fans with catapults. And he talks fondly of the Communards and how ‘80s pop was a Golden Age. Among the highlights …

… Morecambe & Wise at the Kettering Granada with Arthur Tolcher on the mouth organ.

… finding your “pulpit voice”.

… Sir Robert Helpmann’s great gag about referees.

… why time is a healer.

… the “marble denim and mullets” of Legs & Co’s interactive dance to the Communards on Top Of The Pops.  

… on the literary circuit sandwiched between John Lydon and Marti Pellow – “dreams do come true”.

… if he’s ever met a shy vicar.

… the stagecraft of Danny Baker, Adam Kay and Grayson Perry.

… standing on a chair to conduct the RPO, aged 8 and the time he wrote a Magnificat For Choir And Snare Drum in A Minor.

… seeing Bauhaus, John Otway and the 4-Be-2s.

… sitting between Lenny Henry and Torvill & Dean at a Kylie show.

… his teenage punk band Zerox playing Clash covers.

… and why there are never any forks in a Green Room.

Get ‘Borderline National Trinket’ tickets here, last date March 11 at London’s Shaftesbury Theatre …

https://www.seetickets.com/tour/reverend-richard-coles

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