On Monday Pottery hopes have Ghost of a chance!
IF I can’t throw a party, maybe I can throw a pot? I got all fired up recently after watching the Great Pottery Throw Down on catch-up.
I’m a sucker for those programmes where people do something creative and practical. I’m guaranteed to weep in just about every episode of The Repair Shop when the rag doll, which belonged to great, great grandmother, who spent her life in an asylum, becomes, well, a better-looking rag doll. The set of bagpipes, which languished for 40 years in the garden shed, and were once played proudly by ‘granfer’ who was in the Black Watch, can once more reproduce what Alfred Hitchcock described as the sounds of an asthmatic pig!
Bake Off I love for a totally different reason. When those tortes and tarts, gateaux and ganaches work, I find myself reaching for a Mr Kipling.
When they don’t, it’s comedy gold. From Custardgate and the drama of Howard’s Muffins to failed fondants and soggy bottoms. Those stunningly ambitious showstoppers which look great on paper but don’t quite reach their full potential. The Caribbean beach, which looks more like Plymouth’s Tinside on a wet Wednesday. The Pirates’ treasure chest a dead ringer for a box the Saturday morning pensioners have had a good rummage through at the church sale.
Sewing Bee holds no interest for me, I’m afraid, as it’s so far away from anything I could ever achieve. You’re looking at someone who managed to pin her finger to the plate when let loose on a Singer treadle machine for the first time; whose teenage adjustments to her mini skirts involved sticky tape and safety pins and, if I’m honest, on occasion nappy pins.
Coming from a family in the jewellery business, I’m somewhat disappointed with the latest edition to this ‘Have a Go’ genre, All That Glitters: Britain’s Next Jewellery Star. It lacks the promise of the title and I don’t think there’s much in the way of sparkle and gems from the judges. But when it comes to The Great Pottery Throw Down, it’s colourful, it’s vibrant. Contestants, presenter and judges are full of character and tears.
Yes, judge Keith Brymer Jones, a big burly bloke who looks like he’d be more at home heaving sacks of manure in a garden makeover show, actually wells up at the sight of a ceramic sink. Can’t understand why I turned my nose up at it the first time round because I’d always fancied throwing a pot or two. If I’m honest, not until Patrick Swayze, back from the beyond, perched behind Demi Moore whilst she sat at her potters wheel, and caressed her to the strains of the Righteous Brothers’ ‘Unchained Melody’ in the movie Ghost. But instead of finding a class somewhere, I watched the film again!
But this week I took a class. My friend Kat is a talented potter and musician as well as a hypnotherapist. So I was hoping she could kill two birds with one stone and hypnotise me into believing I was someone supremely talented like Bernard Leach, father of British studio pottery.
Sadly she couldn’t and I began with the seemingly impossible task of centering that lump of clay on the wheel, but not before she asked what I wanted to make. Hedging my bets, I suggested we see what happened before I decided. So I went from a mug to a bowl to a lighthouse to the Leaning Tower of Pisa. I think I’ll just watch Ghost – again!
My friend Kat is a talented potter as well as a hypnotherapist. So I was hoping she could kill two birds with one stone and hypnotise me into believing I was someone supremely talented like Bernard Leach