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The first episode of "The Great Celebrity Pottery Throwdown" finally aired tonight. I will be discussing what happened now, so if you haven't seen the episode,
then please watch it before continuing.
I had to keep my various travels to Stoke and back last November secret from you blog hungry fools. It was a very demanding schedule and often very embarrassing and frustrating to be trying something out for the first time whilst being filmed for national TV.
I had very low expectations for my chances of doing well and was genuinely expecting to have to present Keith and Richard with a pile of clay dust for each of the challenges. We had had one lesson with a potter before the filming began, but had been presented with a huge amount of info in a very short time and it was hugely confusing.
Art had been one of the lessons at school that I had no excelled at, but equally had not really tried very hard at. I had used a report from my Middle School Art teacher, Mrs Barke on my Headmaster's Son poster. "Although Richard does not excel at this subject, he could be quite good if he settled sensibly and refrained from clowning." Whilst it was probably good in the long run that I concentrated more on clowning than on art, I guess Mrs Barke did recognise there was something there.
I couldn't stand that there was a school subject that I was not good at. I took all my art from middle school home in a folder when I left and immediately took it into the back garden and burned it. Of course I regret that, but that action speaks volumes about me and my attitude towards failure.
I was and am a dick in many ways.
Whilst I got some pleasure a few years ago for creating home made T shirts for fans (which will surely be worth millions soon), I had kept away from doing anything artistic (that involved craft) for most of my life.
I assumed that I was being asked on the show to provide comic relief, as it's made by the same company who had already seen my creative efforts on Bake Off. I was happy to take that role and maybe learn a bit of a new skill and also get paid some money. Which might initially have been the main motivation. Along with being back on the telly. I just want to be on the telly.
It turned out to go very differently than I expected and even when I was doing that first build I was thinking how childish my stuff was (even if I was doing a bit better than I'd thought). So I was genuinely gob-smacked and a little bit moved when Rich and Keith started waxing lyrical about it. I still had my feet on the ground enough to know that they were talking relatively. But it was still a big thing for me to have tried my best and far exceeded my expectations. Everyone had done brilliantly though. We were all beginners and I don't think any of us could believe what we'd achieved.
Rich and Keith are the best of men and terrific role models. Keith looks like someone you wouldn't want to mess with, but he is artistic and kind and emotional (though he made me cry rather than the other way round in this episode) and an individual who is very happy in his own skin (and with extraordinary fashion sense). Both these fine men, as well as Liza and the excellent crew were encouraging and impressed and as you'll see if you stick around for the rest, we all improved over the course of a mentally and physically exhausting month.
It was an even bigger surprise to actually win the episode and be Star Potter. Merson claimed I'd been playing them all along, but I had been genuine throughout and I couldn't really process that at the time. I really enjoyed the painting particularly and have subsequently tried to find some time to do some drawing. Mrs Barke has been vindicated in part.
I watched with Catie and Phoebe. As mentioned in the programme Phoebe (a properly talented artist) was dismissive of my work when I sent her pictures, but I think she enjoyed watching. Of course it all took on a rather different meaning for us because so much of it was about Wolfie and it was hard to watch that given what's happened. I did at last shed some proper tears for her though. It felt positive to have given her this unwitting tribute and to have represented Hitchin too.
Though even though my Wolfie representations have been in the kitchen cupboard for nearly a year, Catie revealed that she hadn't realised they were egg cups. And Phoebe said they looked like demented foxes, so I am not giving up on comedy to open my own pottery business just yet.
The editors of this programme are possibly the greatest geniuses of all though. There was so much footage to go through and so many stories to tell and jokes to get in. I don't know how they even began to do it. I do know that it felt like we spent a lot of time doing the walk into the pottery for every episode and they used about 2 seconds of it in the episode!
