Reverend Richard Coles would reform The Communards for charity.
The 55-year-old vicar and his bandmate Jimmy Somerville had a string of hits in the mid-80s, including their famous covers of ‘Don’t Leave Me This Way’ and ‘Never Can Say Goodbye’, before splitting in 1988.
Richard and Jimmy, 56, had a strained relationship for many years after they broke up but are now very much on friendly terms and are regularly asked to reunite for concerts.
Richard is happy to leave The Communards’ career in the past but if they were approached to perform to raise money and awareness for a HIV charity then he would do it.
Speaking exclusively to BANG Showbiz, he said: "Me and Jimmy get asked all the time to reform and re-visit the 80s but I don’t if I particularly want to do that. I think it’s best left there, the law of diminshing returns applies. I think I would do it if it there was a good enough pretext for me and Jimmy to do it, I wouldn’t rule it out. I’ve always found Jimmy’s voice exciting, he’s the best singer I’ve ever worked with. Maybe if it was for a charity thing, we’ve always been involved with a lot of the charities that sprung up in response to the HIV crisis. That was 30 years ago and I guess a lot of those charities will be marking significant anniversaries soon so I’d do it for that."
Richard is still involved in music and he has just picked the songs for new Christmas compilation album ‘The Reverend Richard Coles – Songs For Christmas’ which is out now.
And although the musician no longer stands on stage as a pop star he insists he gets his performing fix from singing in his parish choir and his work as a Christian.
Richard – who was a celebrity competitor on this year’s ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ – said: "I like to think I do a lot of performing anyway because a big part of being a vicar is performing, although it’s just too slightly smaller audiences than I was playing to in the 1980s. I’m involved with quite a lot of speaking things, like I’m a chancellor of a university and I work for a housing association too. But I still sing, I sing in the choir now. So I like to think I’m still performing."
Richard Coles would reform The Communards for charity
