Go behind the scenes with the Great Pottery Throw Down judges and presenter

The Great Pottery Throw Down returns to Gladstone Pottery in Stoke on Trent for a seventh series with 12 talented crafters competing to be named Britain’s Best Home Potter.

BAFTA-winning actress Siobhán McSweeney is back as host, alongside regular ceramics superstar judges Keith Brymer Jones and Rich Miller. Rose Schmits assists once more as Kiln Technician.

As usual, there are a few special appearances from guest judges and this time the team are joined by ceramicists Jacqui Atkin and Ashraf Hanna and ceramic artist Lee Price.

We can't wait for the return of a few perennial favourites: Raku Week, Garden Week, and Bathroom Week. There'll be a few new themes such as novelty, farm animals, salt firing and perfect Sunday memories.

Get the gossip from the Great Pottery Throw Down series seven with Siobhán, Keith and Rich

We chatted with the Great Pottery Throw Down judges and host to uncover the highs and lows of the new series…

What can we expect from series seven of The Great Pottery Throw Down?

Siobhán: We have a really extraordinary bunch of potters this year – all incredibly different with completely different aesthetics, backgrounds and tastes.

Keith: Yeah, the potters were really amazing. They seem to get better and better every year. They really do. They range from 24 to 67 and are from all walks of life.

Rich: And, more than ever, the potters took such utter joy in what they were doing with the clay. From the outset, they were a really positive and upbeat group who were a real pleasure to be around.

Keith: And their backgrounds and stories really came through what they made. It’s really wonderful and a testament to the clay itself because it’s so expressive. It can be so emotive making something out of clay.

Rich: Above all else, we’ve got some really talented makers. Week-on-week, we threw everything at them and they just delivered. It was an incredibly high standard. They made the most incredible things.

It can be so emotive making something out of clay.

Keith Brymer Jones, Great Pottery Throw Down judge

Tell us about the challenges…

Keith: We brought back an old staple: the toilet. For me, that was a favourite. Making a Victorian floral toilet is such a huge challenge – the sheer scale of the thing.

It was in the semi-final and, by that time, the potters knew their strengths and weaknesses. It’s really intriguing finding out how they are going to approach that challenge as a person and a potter. I love a toilet!

Siobhán: I really liked the shaving scuttle because I had never heard of a shaving scuttle. None of our potters had either. You realise not even that long ago these would have been very popular items and yet they feel utterly bizarre to us now.

I loved that they made Gluggle Jugs, too. If only to say the word ‘gluggle’. You know the fish? I thought they were a vase, but they’re actually a jug.

I also liked when they made the abstract teapots because it reminded me of my mother. She used to collect teapots – just in a very casual way. And it reminded me of all the silly teapots she used to keep on top of the kitchen presses. Like a teapot that would be in the shape of a little house or something.

Keith: It was amazing, actually, how much they transformed the teapot…

Rich: We had some really out there shapes you wouldn't imagine would even be a teapot and yet it contained tea and could be poured. It was a really good challenge.

Teapots are one of those things underestimated by every potter who’s attempted to make one. You’ve got every aspect of making: a lid, spout, strainer, handle, galleries for the lid to sit in… And it's not until it's out of the kiln that you know whether it will pour tea.

No one likes a dribbly spout and there was the odd dribble here or there. Overall, though, they did very well.

What else have you been up to?

Keith: We’ve gone off piste. We've gone outside the studio for a visit to Duchess China – a local pottery in Stoke which has been going since 1888. That was for a decorating challenge with a ceramic artist called Lee Price. One of my favourite second challenges. He’s incredible.

Rich: It’s really fine art work – absolutely incredible – and a skill you would rarely come into contact with unless you have an opportunity like this on Throw Down. It’s the first time I've seen someone decorating with such skill, finesse and knowledge accrued over years and years. He's been in the industry for over 35 years.

Keith: Lee is a decorator to the Royal Collection and some of his plates sell for £4,000. You could argue some of the stuff he does is almost superhuman. That was a wonderful challenge because it highlights the skill in decorating, but also the skill that's in the town of Stoke – the home of pottery.

Rich: There’s such a wealth of skills like that in Stoke and far more than there are left, have been lost.

Keith: We’ve done an alternative firing in the yard, too, which didn't smell too much, did it?

That was salt firing…

Keith: Yeah, we fired things in these makeshift oil drum kilns outside. Hopefully, the viewer has a real sense of how the atmosphere in a kiln can affect the pieces they're making. It's true alchemy.

Siobhán: I always think with Alternative Firing Week and Raku Week and, this year, when we went to visit Duchess China, there's always a touch of the free class in school.

Or when it was really sunny and you'd be allowed to do your class outside. The simplest things become the greatest pleasure.

You skip along the road in excitement…

Siobhán: That’s it. We were joking that everybody had to hold hands in twos as they were going up the road to Duchess wearing high-vis. There’s something simple but nonetheless exciting and precious about these different things we do.

Everybody gets excited over Raku Week… including myself. I forget I actually get frozen and it's very smelly and the jets are really loud. Each year, I'm like: ‘Yay, Raku!’

Rich: We had ceramicist Jacqui Atkin as a guest, too. She has the most incredible eye for design and surface decoration. All of our potters loved that. And ceramicist Ashraf Hanna – the face behind the clay we've been using for years on the show. He was handbuilding a sort of vase form with square forms and ergonomic round forms. All the potters dived into that one.

As a judge, being able to watch demonstrations from these makers is such a privilege. They do the most incredible things.

Keith: When you bring in people who are experts in one particular field, it’s mind-blowing

Siobhán: I love the nerdiness of it all. Listening to these two talk is hilarious. They get so excited, it’s so nerdy. But having guest judges and the way they talk about the very specific area they are masters of… it’s really charming and quite rare.

You’ve got fire, but you also have a lot of water with teapots, toilets AND a cascading water feature

Rich: Cascading bowl water features in Garden Week were great fun. Whenever you involve another aspect of the build – whether that be light or water or the outside firing – it throws something else in the mix.

You never really know what water is going to do. You might think: ‘Oh, it's gonna cascade beautifully round this edge and onto here and over this lip…’ And our potters very quickly found that isn't the case. Water is a law unto itself. There’s the engineering…will it function?

Equally, you've got the audio element, that trickling, and the actual movement of the water. And a crack could be completely detrimental to the build. There were several challenges this year where the engineering was as important as the decorative concept.

Any other favourites?

Rich: My favourite main make was what, on paper, I thought was going to be my least favourite and that was the Staffordshire Flatbacks. I absolutely loved that week. It was a real surprise for me.

Flatbacks were industrially produced in Victorian times and were kind of the first time the ordinary person could have Staffordshire figures on their mantelpiece at home. I was blown away by what the potters made and the fact we had them on mantelpieces at judging just brought them to life.

The potters managed to take a traditional concept and really drag it into the 21st century and impart the most personal stories into the things they made. They looked like representations of our potters – you could really tell who'd made what. It was just them in a ceramic object. And the quality of the making was outstanding.

Throw Down is much more personal than similar shows. Potters really do draw on their lives…

Rich: Yeah, clay is an inherently expressive material. It’s just a lump of brown or beige mud and it’s only what the potters impart on it that creates anything. For thousands of years, humans have used clay to express themselves. These things will last forever, so you feel a sense of responsibility to make whatever you make count. And it does encourage people to explore personal ideas and themes. It’s something definitely unique to the Throw Down.

Unlike cakes, where you might make something delicious, but you eat it and it's gone. Or you might make a garment you’ll wear, but it will have a lifespan… Pottery is just going to be here forever. It's your creative mark, your sense of expression, frozen in time forever.

There must have been hard decisions for you to make as judges….

Keith: Rich and I have had to really think about who's going and who's staying because the standard was really high and really, really close.

Rich: Every week, it was very difficult. Some potters were amazing decorators, some amazing throwers, some amazing handbuilders. All of them excelled in different parts of ceramics. There was a real mixed bag, but there was such talent in the room. They came back with energy, excitement and exuberance week-on-week.

It took longer than ever to work out who was going through and who wasn’t. We had a few very long conversations…

You ask them to make a chandelier in the final. How was that?

Rich: What was lovely was the varying approaches. We had three finalists with very different strengths, so the variety in their approach was really, really refreshing.

They were three very different chandeliers and just the engineering of a structure like that… it's no mean feat. You wouldn't ordinarily think about making something like that out of clay. They all did themselves justice. It was incredible.

Have you met any famous faces you’d like to get in the studio? Or heard people say they desperately want to take part in the celebrity Pottery Throw Down?

Siobhán: Every person I've ever met who's vaguely off the telly. I've been like: ‘Oh, I think they’d like to be on Pottery…’ It's not that I'm hustling. Far from it. I don't need to hustle them – people are queuing up to come on the show. It’s more that I want to share the fact it’s really cool and interesting. We’ve famously had Brad Pitt say he’s a fan…

Rich: Tony Robinson. He likes Pottery… He'd be fabulous with the archaeology and his knowledge of pottery [from Time Team].

Siobhán: He would be absolutely fabulous.

Keith: Harry Enfield. I bumped into him in a pub in London recently and he absolutely loves the show. I said to him: ‘Well, you ought to come on…’ He gave me a funny look, as if to say: ‘Well, maybe I'll contemplate it.’

Do you get lots of messages from viewers inspired to copy a make from the show?

Rich: Definitely. It's really encouraging people to give it a go for sure. That's one of the most heartening things about being involved with Throw Down.

With pottery being lost in an educational environment, it just feels so important people are able to discover the joys of working with clay. If they can be inspired enough to pick up a lump of clay, it’s fantastic.

I just feel so privileged to be part of Pottery Throw Down. Everything that surrounds it is so positive.

Rich Miller, Great Pottery Throw Down judge

Keith: Yes, I get tagged in lots and lots of posts. Everyone’s asking for my remarks on said ashtray or clay donkey or whatever it might be. It’s great. It just makes you realise the amount of enthusiasm out there and the appetite for this kind of show and for people to get really creative.

And look, at the end of the day, you don't necessarily have to be really good at it. You just have to enjoy the process of trying to make something.

Rich: A friend of mine sent me photos of her class. All the kids had made these little bowls inspired by the show. People from all over the world send images. It’s really wonderful. I feel really lucky. On the whole, everybody that comes up to me is immensely positive about the show, the warm atmosphere exuded from the pottery and the creativity of the potters. It’s lovely.

Being someone like Nasty Nick off EastEnders must be awful if you're being bombarded with hatred, but I just feel so privileged to be part of Pottery Throw Down. Everything that surrounds it is so positive.

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