Born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, Coleman began working in an office at the age of fourteen while studying music at evening classes.

[2] He initially worked on the bilingual news programme, and had produced more than 500 shows by 1958,[3] including coverage of Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom's coronation.

[1] Also for ATV, he produced John Betjeman's Steam and Stained Glass; the UK's first hidden camera show, Bob Boothby's Dinner Party;[3] and the country's first consumer programme, On The Braden Beat.

[2] He recorded II Trovatore in Rome which was shown as live, an original idea at the time, and later applied the same treatment to Monteverdi's Vespers from Venice.

[3] In his spare time, Coleman wrote the Bluffers Guides to ballet and opera, was a community activist in Highgate and Muswell Hill and was a Buddhist who appeared on BBC Radio 4's Thought for the Day.