What we'd like to see from new BBC2 show The Great British Pottery Throw Down

The makers of The Great British Bake Off have turned their hands to pottery - and we're imagining it as Patrick Swayze meets Time Team...

James Gill

Published: Tuesday, 21 April 2015 at 3:20 pm

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The makers of The Great British Bake Off are moulding a new talent show: a pottery competition.

Sara Cox is set to present The Great British Pottery Throw Down, billed as Bake Off's "messier cousin." Ten potters will compete for the clay crown of Britain's best potter, with experts Keith Brymer-Jones and Kate Malone judging the efforts.

Some of the details are still a little sketchy but it will certainly have its work cut out matching Bake Off – so we thought we'd give the programme makers some inspiration...

Couples pottery

Contestants team up to erect (careful: this is a pre-watershed show) the tallest pot possible. It's Ghost meets Strictly Come Dancing: sexy, but in a fully clothed, BBC sort of way.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vnDNrek_lY

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Pot of gold

The best moments in Bake Off are when things go spectacularly wrong: baked alaskas melting in the heat, salt instead of sugar, wobbly biscuit towers. Pottery is an untapped source of TV gold: spinning wheels, wet clay, cracked pots and very, very hot ovens.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gmS_JaL7rQ

Anyone called Harry

Surely the producers realise the potential of this already. Bake Off has the cherry bakewell loveliness of Mary Berry, after all. Just imagine it: "You're a potter, Harry!"

Dirty work

This series already scores high on the Mel and Sue Pun-Ometer: "who will crack under pressure?", "which contestant will be fired?", "all work and no clay". As for the double entendres – it's enough to make the head spin.

The Time Team Test

Make a pot, bury it, then see whether an archeologist can tell the difference between your modern fake and a British Museum treasure. It's the equivalent of Bake Off's history bit: a good excuse for most of us to nip to the kitchen for a cup of tea.