The final ab dabs

BBC2, 8pm ORIGINALLY billed as Bake Off’s muckier cousin, this amateur pottery competition is rife with innuendo. And we thought they meant mucky clay, not language.

Sara Cox has been giddy with naughty puns but even she is reduced to a quivering mess in tonight’s final when it all gets a bit much. In walks a buff French guy, who promptly whips off his T-shirt to reveal a ripping torso.

Clover nearly passes out there and then, while fellow finalists Richard and Ryan exchange smirks and eye rolls.

It’s the Spot Test and the three potters must sculpt the “so ridiculous it looks like a cartoon” body of special guest, ice dancer Sylvain Longchambon.

He even does a few press-ups before the task begins, just to pump up his pecs a bit more. Then Sara comes over all giggly teenager while practising her schoolgirl French.

“How are you approaching the nipples?” Richard asks Ryan, in a sentence he probably never thought he’d say.

But enough childish behaviour, there is some serious pottery to get on with. And there’s a final throw down – to make as many Japanese lanterns as they can in 10 minutes.

It’s not as simple as it sounds as they have to throw them the Japanese way, with the wheel turning the other way.

And for their Main Make, judges Kate Malone and Keith Brymer Jones give the potters their hardest task yet. They want them to make two identical, fully-functioning light features from porcelain, which is a nightmare to work with. It’s so tricky that for one finalist, cracks start to show. Big ones.

There will be tears – and perhaps not just from Keith.