Richard Coles (born June 23 1962 in Northampton, England) was the multi-instrumentalist who partnered Jimmy Somerville in the 1980s band The Communards.

Coles had previously played the clarinet on the song It Ain't Necessarily So which was a hit in 1984 for Bronski Beat, a trio which featured Somerville as its lead singer. The following year, Somerville quit this band to join Coles.

The Communards were together for slightly more than three years and enjoyed three UK Top 10 hits, including the biggest-selling single of 1986 with a version of Don't Leave Me This Way, which was at Number 1 for four weeks. They split in 1988 and Somerville went solo.

Coles became a writer and journalist afterwards, most notably with the Times Literary Supplement and the Catholic Herald . In 1994 he appeared as a guest on the BBC news quiz Have I Got News For You.