For the Great Pottery Throw Down’s semi-final episode of the ninth series, the contestants will attempt to recreate a famous piece of Moorcroft pottery.
As The Great Pottery Throw Down series for 2023 reaches the final four, the remaining potters will tackle the first challenge of making Turkish baths style twin sinks and decorative tiles, before the surprise second challenge.
The final four will fight for a place in the grand final by taking on a difficult test of design and one requiring a steady hand as they take on the iconic Moorcroft tubelining to recreate a famous Moorcroft Queen’s Choice piece.
The Queen’s Choice range was created by Moorcroft designer, Emma Bossons FRSA who joins as Guest Judge alongside the series' expert judging duo Keith Brymer Jones and Rich Miller. While Moorcroft tubeline artist, Gill Johnson will demonsrate the pottery’s very own heritage skill of ‘tubelining’.
In a Moorcroft career, which started at the tender age of 20, Emma’s work has become extraordinarily popular with Moorcroft collectors across the globe. From the outset, her designs flashed across the world with Queen’s Choice a best seller ever since.
For 2002, the young designer’s Golden Jubilee design was judged to be of such high quality for the Queen to consent to the use of the Royal Cypher on the base of each piece in the collection. A piece was also taken into the Royal Collection.
Emma Bossons’ Queen’s Choice design is not only one of the two longest running contemporary Moorcroft designs in the historic art pottery’s illustrious history, but it is also considered to be Moorcroft’s trademark design, synonymous with all that is Moorcroft and holding Moorcroft’s hope for a fruitful future.
Inspired by Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night's Dream, every fruit mentioned by Shakespeare’s Queen of The Fairies, Titania, in Act 3, Scene 1, is found in the design. Titania declares, 'Be kind and courteous to this gentleman; Hop in his walks and gambol in his eyes; Feed him with apricots and dewberries; with purple grapes, green figs and mulberries...'
Commenting on the episode, Moorcroft’s Catherine Gage, PR Director said: “Emma was thrilled to be a Guest Judge on the Great Pottery Throw Down and introduce her iconic Queen’s Choice design, now synonymous with Moorcroft. The Great Pottery Throw Down has done so much to champion many pottery skills and techniques found in the Potteries and across the country. To be able to demonstrate our own heritage skills has been an absolute privilege.”
The semi-final episode will air at 7.45pm on Sunday 5th March on Channel 4 and will be available to stream online at www.channel4.com shortly afterwards.
To find out more about the Queen’s Choice design go to www.moorcroft.com
