The Great Pottery Throw Down appoints Stoke-on-Trent pottery legend as guest judge

An industry-leading Stoke-on-Trent pottery designer is to feature as a guest judge on a major TV show. Moorcroft’s Emma Bossons FRSA will judge contestants’ tubelining attempts in The Great Pottery Throw Down’s ‘Queen’s Choice challenge’.

Emma, 46, is a big name in the pottery industry, having pioneered the floral Queen’s Choice design and seen it become a fixture on decorative pieces around the world.

Airing on Channel 4 on Sunday, March 5, at 7.45pm, the show was shot in one day at Gladstone Pottery Museum, in Longton. And Emma has told StokeonTrentLive how proud she was to have been asked to take part.

READ MORE: How Siobhan McSweeney became host of Great Pottery Throw Down as series returns

She said: “I was called into a meeting and told I was going to be on the show. I was already a huge fan, so it was an incredibly exciting moment – so much so I admit I did feel a little bit sick and nervous. I’ve done very well not telling anyone what happened on the day.

“The experience was exactly how you’d imagine it to be when you watch it on TV – they’re just a wonderful, welcoming group of people.

“Shev was really funny and all the guys were so knowledgeable. It’s a bit nerve-wracking and surreal with the cameras pointing at you, but they made me feel so at ease.

“It was filmed in one day, locally, at Gladstone, which is another great thing for the Potteries area. Myself and my colleague, Gill, who’s so talented, were demo artists, so she got to show off her skills.

“On the Queen’s Choice, it’s very flattering for one of my designs to be highlighted on the programme. Twenty-two years ago I designed it and it’s been by my side every step of my career.

“I’ve been to the US, Australia and New Zealand – and the Queen’s Choice has always been with me. She’s such a wonderful companion for me to have – and she’s still going strong today.

“I think the colour palettes have a lot to do with what makes it special – it’s such a rich, sumptuous design. Fruit is a familiar subject matter.

“I started at Moorcroft in 1996, but it feels like yesterday. I was only 20 when I started as a painter, painting other designers’ work. We were always encouraged to submit our designs to the board, which I did.

“When the design studio started in 1997, I became part of the design team – it’s a wonderful place to work. We’ve got people who come straight from school and over 30 years, they’ve become your friends, not just your colleagues.”

Emma Bossons’ amazing career

Originally from Congleton, where her parents still live, she was educated at the former Westlands High School. Instead of pursuing higher education, she pursued a Youth Training Scheme (YTS) placement at Wedgwood.

But she walked into the Moorcroft shop one day and ‘fell in love’, which is when she applied for a job as a painter there. Now Emma lives in the Staffordshire Moorlands with her partner and two cats.

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. A string of successful limited editions endorsed the phenomenal rise to fame of a designer, who became the youngest female member of the Fellowship of the Royal Society of Arts.

When the Royal Mail produced a series of first day covers to acknowledge Stoke-on-Trent ceramicists, three leading RSA members were chosen – Josiah Wedgwood, Sir Henry Doulton and Emma Bossons.

Emma has travelled the world with Moorcroft seeking design inspiration and imagery from Australia, Canada, Fiji, Kiribati, New Zealand and the US have all emerged from Emma’s sketchbook in recent years from this truly international designer.

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.”

Final place at stake for contestants

Series six commenced with 12 new home potters with Siobhán McSweeney hosting contestants as they strove to create great works of craftsmanship, skill and imagination with each challenge judged by expert judging duo Keith Brymer Jones and Rich Miller.

For the Great Pottery Throw Down’s semi-final, Emma joins as Guest Judge whilst contestants get fired up to compete in a Queen’s Choice challenge. They will first have had to make Turkish bath-style twin sinks and decorative tiles.

The Moorcroft task is the surprise second challenge. Judges Keith Brymer Jones and Rich Miller must decide which three potters will go through to the grand final.

The Great Pottery Throw Down, filmed at Gladstone Museum, is well known for celebrating the rich history of British pottery creation in the heart of The Potteries itself, Stoke-on-Trent.

Now heritage icon Moorcroft will showcase its design acumen, the pottery’s very own heritage skill of ‘tubelining’ (demonstrated by Gill Johnson) as well as fine artistry.

About the design featuring in episode nine

Emma” Queen’s Choice design is not only one of the two longest-running contemporary Moorcroft designs in the historic art pottery’s illustrious history.

It is also considered to be Moorcroft’s trademark design. Inspired by Shakespeare play A Midsummer Night’s Dream, every fruit mentioned by Shakespeare’s Queen of The Fairies, Titania, in Act Three, Scene One, 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.”

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