They’ve fired clay with cow dung and crafted toilets that collapsed. As the latest series reaches its climax with an ‘art deco punch bowl’ challenge, we meet the emotional team behind the Channel 4 success
Keith Brymer Jones is talking about pots and crying. “I get emotional,” says the master potter, “because it’s a craft I love. It is my life. When I see a potter communicating their creativity via something they’ve made, I can’t help but cry. You’re watching imagination come to life. It’s so special.”
Crying over pots has become something of a USP for Jones, ever since he took to our screens in 2015 as one of the two judges of The Great Pottery Throw Down, a craft-based competition in the vein of Bake Off and Sewing Bee, placing hopefuls behind the rotating wheel for their chance at artistic success. Jones has cried at everything from delicate arrangements of bowls, to vases, sculptural forms and a dainty tea set. Where Paul Hollywood has his handshake of yeast-based approval, so Jones has his tears of kiln-fired delight.
