Fr Alex Frost is the vicar of St Matthew’s the Apostle, Burnley, where he grew up. He describes himself as the ‘fundamentally unemployable’ host of The God Cast, a podcast devoted to issues of faith and spirituality, which has featured celebrities such as Eamonn Holmes, Alastair Campbell, Edwina Currie, Dom Joly, George Galloway, Anthea Turner and football legend Lou Macari. Ordained in 2012 after a mixed career working as a football referee, manager at Argos and a stand-up comic, Fr Alex was recently appointed to the General Synod for Blackburn Diocese. He is married and has three children.

Fr Alex made headlines when he featured in a 2021 BBC documentary The Cost of Covid – One Year On, which has been viewed over 12 million times since it was aired. Running a food bank from a car park in Burnley, helping the desperate amid his flock as the pandemic raged, Fr Alex’s down-to-earth style of ministry struck a chord with people of all faiths, cultures and classes across the UK in a time when the divide between rich and poor widens cataclysmically. The Church of England priest, who sports tattoos of his favourite band Depeche Mode, has become the last bastion of support for many in the aftermath of austerity measures, Government cuts and Covid 19 upon a community already ravaged by poverty, addiction and neglect. ‘No-one cares, that is the real pandemic,’ Fr Alex says about his 17,000 parishioners whose souls he has care of at St Matthew’s, yards from the estates which have been abandoned and forgotten.

In this fascinating talk Fr Alex will discuss all of this and more, as well as signing copied of his book, Our Daily Bread: from Argos to the Altar – A Priest’s Story, which was published by HarperNorth in late 2022. The book is available from the Cathedral Gift Shop, or from the pop-up shop on the night.

Friday 17 March at 7pm
Fratry Hall
Tickets: £12.50 – all tickets include a donation to Carlisle Food Bank.