The Great Pottery Throw Down 2026 Press Pack

Category: Press Pack

2 January 2026

The Great Pottery Throw Down returns to Gladstone Pottery in Stoke-on-Trent for a ninth series with a dozen more talents competing to be named Britain’s Best Home Potter. BAFTA-winning actress Siobhán McSweeney returns as host with our regular ceramics superstar judges Keith Brymer Jones and Rich Miller. They are joined once again by Princess – a potter from Series 7 – as the kiln technician. Our guest judges are Nick Mackman, Gabriel Nichols, Jo Taylor and Cleo Mussi.

The Series 9 Potters are aged 28 to 63, and the six women and six men hail from Bridgend, Herefordshire, Sheffield, Inverness, Cornwall, Oxfordshire, Swansea, Merseyside, Folkestone, West Midlands, Hampshire and Glasgow.

The Potters’ day jobs include an English Teacher; Communication Support Worker; Midwife; Habitat Restoration Ecologist; Tattooist; Art Teacher, plus a former Psychiatric Nurse; University Facilities and Estate Manager; Actor and Toy Shop Owner, and Chemistry Teacher.

The challenges range from Making Bricks, Bookends, Puzzle Jugs, Animal Sculptures, Retro Seaside Souvenir Sets, Tagine Pots to Floral Posies. There’s also a Model Stage, alternative firing, raku, sgrafitto and of course the Bucket of Doom.

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Press Pack

30 Dec 25 Press Pack Article

Keith Brymer Jones – Judge

Potter/ceramics designer Keith Brymer Jones started out as lead singer in the punk band The Wigs, before becoming an apprentice at Harefield Pottery, London. He’s hand made ceramics for retailers such as Habitat, Heal’s and Conran. Now, he’s best known for his Word range of contemporary homeware – sold in 40+ countries – and as Head of Design for MAKE International. His memoir – Boy in a China Shop: Life, Clay and Everything – was published in 2022 and was followed by a successful live tour. Keith lives in North Wales with actress partner, Marj Hogarth. The couple’s hit series Our Welsh Chapel Dream – chronicling the restoration of their new home/pottery studio – returns for a third series later this year.

30 Dec 25 Press Pack Article

Princess Fingall – Kiln Technician

Bilingual Princess Fingall was born in French Guyana and went to school in France before her family settled in London. In 2019, she left her career as a pastry chef and found her passion in clay, training under artist and teacher Chris Bramble. She is a ceramist and kiln technician. Alongside her studio practice, Princess teaches workshops and courses in London and across the UK. She first appeared as a contestant on series seven of The Great Pottery Throw Down. This is her second season as the show’s kiln technician.

30 Dec 25 Press Pack Article

Rich Miller – Judge

Rich Miller studied ceramics at the Surrey Institute of Art and Design. As well as making and exhibiting his own ceramics, he ran Froyle Tiles for two decades – a firm specialising in bespoke hand-made stoneware tiles. Their work can be seen in many places including the outside of Walford East Underground Station in EastEnders, the bar fronts of most Nando’s restaurants and on the Pavilion at Tate St Ives. Rich lives in Surrey with wife Anna, a professional dressage rider and Paralympic dressage coach, and daughter Bea, ten.

30 Dec 25 Press Pack Article

Siobhán McSweeney - Host

Actress Siobhán McSweeney is best known as Sister Michael in the sitcom Derry Girls, a role for which she won the 2023 BAFTA for Best Female Comedy Performance. She starred in the Disney+ superhero comedy Extraordinary, as well as hit dramas such as Holding, Death in Paradise, Murdoch Mysteries, The Fall, No Offence and Collateral. Her stage career includes: As You Like It and Dancing at Lughnasa at the National Theatre and The Alchemist at the RSC. She was Witzender in the film Alice Through the Looking Glass, presented Exploring Northern Ireland and competed in the Derry Girls edition of Bake Off. She also wrote, directed and starred in the 2024 BBC comedy short, Spud. In 2025, she hosted the first ever season of The Traitors Ireland. Siobhán lives in London.