Reverend Richard Coles’ Murder Before Evensong optioned for TV

Murder Before Evensong (Weidenfeld & Nicolson), the first instalment in Reverend Richard Coles’ Canon Clement Series, has been optioned for TV by the team behind “Silent Witness” and “Luther”.

The Lighthouse Film and Television company acquired television rights from Jonathan Sissons and Rosie Gurtovoy at PFD with a view to turning it into a “returnable television series” executive produced by Coles.

Murder Before Evensong was released on 9th June as a super-lead title, and has hit the Original Fiction number one spot.

The series centres around the character Canon Daniel Clement, Rector of Champton St Mary, who lives at the Rectory alongside his widowed mother and his two dachshunds, Cosmo and Hilda.

The synopsis explains: "When Daniel announces a plan to install a lavatory in church, the parish is suddenly and unexpectedly divided: as lines are drawn, long-buried secrets come dangerously close to destroying the apparent calm of the village. And then Anthony Bowness is found dead at the back of the church, stabbed in the neck with a pair of secateurs. As the police move in and the bodies start piling up, Daniel is the only one who can try and keep his fractured community together… and catch a killer.

Coles is the co-presenter of "Saturday Live" on BBC Radio 4 and just recently retired as vicar from his parish in Northamptonshire. He is also the author of several works of non-fiction including The Madness of Grief (W&N).

The Lighthouse was established in 2020 and has recently completed two series of Peter Moffat’s "61st Street" for AMC. The team has a history of delivering long-running  series such as “Silent Witness”, “DCI Banks”, “Luther”, “Our Girl” and “Silk”.

Coles said: “I am delighted to be working with The Lighthouse, and I can’t wait to see Canon Clement and his CGI dachshunds striding across Champton St Mary’s park. I’m also very excited about getting a fold up chair with my name on the back.”

Radford Neville from The Lighthouse said: “We are thrilled to secure the rights to Richard’s richly layered, beautifully plotted, ecclesiastical crime novel. Full of hugely engaging characters, gentle humour and of course bloody murder, Murder Before Evensong will be a treat to adapt.”