Praise be!
TV has a new crime-busting priest – he’s like me, but hotter, says creator the Rev Richard Coles
Channel 5
- Huw Fullerton
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"Do you know how many vicar detectives there are in fiction?” asks musician, priest and now writer the Rev Richard Coles. “No? There’s 200. If you think about it, vicars are very likely candidates for murder mysteries. You get stuck in everywhere and nobody asks what you’re doing.”
But even outside the world of so-called cosy crime, Coles says dealing with murder is a part of any priest’s job. “I was in central London, then left to become a vicar of a semi-rural parish for 12 years. Everybody said, ‘Oh, you’ll get bored. You’ll just be doing village fêtes.’ But there was a murder in my first week. Or rather, an alleged murder. It happens, you see. The human heart is the human heart. It’s darkness and it’s light wherever you go.
“Murder victims need to have funerals, just like everybody else. Often you’ll find yourself doing funerals not just for murder victims but for murderers, too. Everyone comes to your door in the end.”
With this on-the-job experience, plus the fact that his brother was a detective at Scotland Yard, it was perhaps fate that Coles would turn to writing holy whodunnits. His addition to the, er, canon is cultured cleric Daniel Clement, who solved his first case in the 2022 novel Murder before Evensong, before returning for three more novels (and a short story).
The Rev Richard Coles, author of Murder before Evensong. David Levenson/Getty Images
Now he’s getting the TV treatment, with Harry Potter star Matthew Lewis stepping into a cassock for a six-episode adaptation, in which Daniel’s roped in to hunt down a killer in a 1988 Midlands village.
“Readers think that Daniel Clement is basically me and when I saw Matthew in costume, he actually does look like a hotter version of me,” says Coles. “So that’s a little bit of mental rearrangement!”
Given how closely the series cleaves to Coles’s own experiences – like him, Daniel has moved to a village parish after time in London, and has a fondness for sausage dogs – I wonder at a line of dialogue in the second episode. Daniel ruffles feathers by praying for mercy for the mystery killer, telling his detective sidekick later, “I don’t believe in retribution.” Does Coles feel the same? “I think God’s mercy is coterminous with God’s judgement,” he replies. “To speak of them in isolation of the other is theologically… not quite “meaningless” exactly, but fruitless.
“There is always mercy for those who seek it and want it. My job as a priest would be to make it as easy as possible for anyone to find their way to it. A couple of people… I couldn’t forgive them. But then I would think, ‘I’m glad there is a God who could.’”
It seems that reassurance of things made right is also at the heart of the fictional genre. “It’s interesting: British murder mysteries were very popular at the end of the 1930s, because we sensed a world of menace,” Coles suggests. “Again, today the world is growingly uncertain. Murder mysteries condense that, and then someone fixes it, and makes us feel OK again.” Praise be!
IN GOOD FAITH
Matthew Lewis stars as Canon Daniel Clement in Murder Before Evensong Channel 5
Matthew Lewis swaps magic for murder
You’re an atheist — what was it like playing a man of the cloth?
Well, I didn’t immediately burst into flames when I put on a dog collar, so that was a good start. When I told my family and friends what I was going to be doing, once they stopped laughing, they said, “That’s going to really push your acting chops.” I’m someone who’s not a particularly huge fan of organised religion, and yet can’t help but feel like it still has a part to play in society in some way.
What did Richard make of that?
I am, as an actor and a human being, fascinated by faith and Richard’s faith. I’ve had more than my fair share of theological discussions and debates with him, which have been a real pleasure. Because I find his particular faith fascinating and so interesting — as someone who has none!
A lot of readers have thought Daniel is basically Richard writing himself — do you agree?
I think there’s more of him in Daniel than he cares to admit, but it’s not him.
Your first job was bringing a famous book character to life, as Neville Longbottom in the Harry Potter movies — did you have any misgivings about doing it again?
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There’s trepidation. Much like we had with Harry Potter, we’re trying to appeal to new fans who haven’t read the books. But at the same time we really want to make sure that we don’t cast aside the people who have. I’m a passionate reader myself, and I know some adaptations that have left me with a bitter taste. I want to make sure that people who read it and love it, still love this, too. I want to get it right.
Authors
Huw FullertonCommissioning editor
Huw Fullerton is a commissioning editor for Radio Times magazine handling comedy, entertainment and specialist drama. In a previous regeneration, he covered all things sci-fi and fantasy for RadioTimes.com.
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