The Great Pottery Throw Down returns for a seventh series on Channel 4, with host Siobhán McSweeney and judges Keith Brymer Jones and Rich Miller back on board in 2024. This time they’ll be joined by guest judges ceramicists Jacqui Atkin and Ashraf Hanna and ceramic artist Lee Price and will preside over the 12 wannabe potters, all competing for the Throw Down crown. Fans can expect more of their favourites themes, such as raku week, garden week, and bathroom week, as well as some new additions such as novelty, farm animals and salt firing.
Here’s everything you need to know about series seven of The Great Pottery Throw Down…
The Great Pottery Throw Down series 7 release date
The Great Pottery Throw Down series 7 starts on Channel 4 on Sunday 7 January 2024 at 8pm.
What happens in The Great Pottery Throw Down series 7?
Six men and six women from around the UK, including a cake sculptor, an actor and a retired special school teacher, will take on numerous pottery challenges in the hope of making it through the weekly rounds. The first episode kicks off with Perfect Sunday Memories Week where the contestants must make a Sunday roast dinner set featuring a gravy boat and saucer, a dinner plate, a condiment pot with a lid and salt and pepper shakers. The second challenge will task them with throwing multiple identical side plates.
Interview: host Siobhán McSweeney on what to expect in The Great Pottery Throw Down season 7
Siobhán McSweeney plays Sister Michael in the sitcom Derry Girls. She’s also had roles in shows such as Holding, Death in Paradise, Murdoch Mysteries, The Fall, No Offence, Redemption and Collateral and played Witzender in the film Alice Through the Looking Glass. Here Siobhán reveals everything you need to know about The Great Pottery Throw Down season 7...
What can we expect from series seven?
Siobhán McSweeney says: "We have a really extraordinary bunch of potters this year – all incredibly different with completely different aesthetics, backgrounds and tastes."
Tell us about the challenges…
Siobhán says: "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."
You left the studio to film in the Duchess China pottery in Stoke this series. How was that?
Siobhán says: "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 says: "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!’ I love the nerdiness of it all. Having guest judges and the way they talk about the very specific area they are masters of… it’s really charming and quite rare.
Are you always nagging the judges to hurry up?
Siobhán says: "On camera, yes, but in reality, we give the judges as much time as possible. I know it’s a television programme and there are far more important things going on in the world, certainly at the moment, but it is a difficult decision. And it's an important decision. The lads take it really seriously because it has an effect on our lovely potters."
Judging is a tough job for Keith and Rich…
Siobhán says: "Especially this year. There was a lot of people of a very similar level, but specialising in different areas, so it made a judgement incredibly hard. I really felt for the guys, but you have to give them the time it takes. And the only thing I can do to help, if they want my help, and if they ask for it, is make the tea and sweep the floor. The lads know what they're doing, though. The fact it's difficult for them is proof they know what they’re doing.
Is it tough to send people out of the competition?
Siobhán says: "When I have to announce who the person being sent home is I feel almost like their mother or something. I’m the person who has to tell them: ‘You did really, really well, but it's time for you to go home.’ Most weeks, not all, but most weeks, we’re more upset than the Potters are. Not because they want to go home, but because they're shattered. In fairness to every single one of our Potters, they give their all. You cannot help but give your all – the very nature of clay demands it. I cannot tell you how tired they are. I mean, I'm shattered still and it's been a week since we finished filming. I'm bone-tired and I wasn’t making anything… except good telly. They're very tired by the end. It's almost like we're the heartbroken ones and they're like: ‘Oh, thank God, I can go home and see my family again…'"
You must adore it when you have potters with a great sense of humour…Siobhán says: "There's nothing better. I've been very lucky the last four years as there’s always somebody – usually one person in particular – who really wants to play with me. Someone who really, really gets what's going on… which is I'm the annoying younger sister… or older sister, usually. But also the annoying audience member who’s going: ‘What's happening now? What’s happening now? Tell me what’s happening now?’ It’s the hardest thing to create fantastic works of art and talk to me at the same time. It's incredibly difficult to do that and we understand how difficult it is. To find somebody who can do not only that, but also be willing to play with me… I'm in heaven. Absolute heaven."
You and Derek were quite the double act last year…
Siobhán says: "My God, wasn't he fantastic? It's my fourth year now doing the show, so people know what they're getting. And there's such an openness to that playfulness, which – coming from a clowning background as well – is something I really adore."
It lightens the mood for all of them and makes it easier to be creative, doesn’t it?
Siobhán says: "That's the aim – to get a bit of levity, a bit of lightness, in there. I always say there should be more shows about pottery. Since there are no other shows about pottery, we get the weight of the entire medium put upon us and, as a result, it’s too heavy for a beautifully kind, authentic, fun, light entertainment show to carry. We can’t carry the future of pottery in the United Kingdom. Maybe talk to the government about that."
What were the funniest moments this year?
Siobhán says: "I am the first person to ask for funny things to dress up in, but to look out the window and see Keith and Rich dressed in a costume and enjoying it so much… I almost turned to the camera and said: ‘My work here is done…’ I almost took off the earrings, took off the microphone and said: ‘I have nothing left here. I've given my all…"
What did they come as?
Siobhán says: "A pantomime cow. As I said at the time: ‘Give the people what they want…"
Last year, we had multiple Siobháns appearing from every doorway. Do we have them again?
Siobhán says: "We do. And Sinéad comes back… the evil twin sister. I love the little skits at the start. They're fun – the cherry on top. They’re little throwaway petit fours aside from the main event, which is the pottery, but it allows people to laugh and relaxes them. It can be a very stressful environment otherwise and we don't want it to be. We want it to be authentic, but not stressful."
Have you met any famous faces you’d like to get in the studio?
Siobhán says: "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…"
Do you feel that Throw Down brings people a lot of pleasure?
Siobhán says: "The show has been so much fun to film and brings so much joy. When the series comes out, I look forward to Sundays. I get a take-out and sometimes I watch it with my neighbours or my friends come over or I just curl up on the couch and watch the episode myself. I love it. It gives me that really secure feeling I had growing up when I was with my family and we’d watch something on a Sunday evening… before you realised you hadn't done your maths homework."
Is there a trailer?
No but if Channel 4 releases one, we’ll add it to this page.
