one4review | On 15, Aug 2019

The Reverend Richard Coles returns to the Fringe. This charming man! The show is littered with 1980’s references, which is proving very appealing to the audience, largely made up of people who remember it well and fondly.

The Cabaret Bar is one of the larger venues at the Pleasance and the queue to get in has snaked all the way out of the courtyard and into the road. I think it is fair to say that Richard’s participation in last year’s Strictly Come Dancing broadens his appeal, but it is the tales of 80’s global pop stardom as one half of the Communards, that is going to keep us entertained for the next hour.

We hear of how Richard came to find himself living in a large shared house in Kings Cross in 1980. How he came to meet Jimmy Somerville, who was already enjoying pop success fronting Bronski Beat, and form The Communards. Indeed, world success was achieved, culminating in 1986’s biggest selling single with “Don’t Leave Me This Way”.

There can’t be too many shows where Boy George, George Michael, Mo Mowlan and Bruce Springsteen can all be name dropped!

It has been an interesting journey for Richard, the public school boy chorister from Northamptonshire, to being ordained a Church of England Priest in 2005 in . . . Northamptonshire!

The hour was packed full of stories of what went on in between. A truly fascinating entertaining hour. There were so much more that you wanted to find out, to ask. May I suggest, Richard, a question and answer section of the show, perhaps?  And whatever happened to Jimmy Somerville?  

**** 

Reviewed by Margot   

At the Pleasance Cabaret Bar  

At 17:15 until August 25th