Great Pottery Throw Down judge Keith Bryner-Jones and his partner in life and crime, actor & designer Marj Hogarth, take to the road this month with a brand-new show titled Us, Pots And A Welsh Chapel. What’s On recently caught up with the duo to get the lowdown on what audiences can expect...

The title of the show is Us, Pots And A Welsh Chapel. Could you elaborate on what each of those three elements represents, and how they weave together to tell your story in this new live format?
Keith: Well, basically, ‘us’ is us. The algorithm of how we got together, which is quite interesting. And then, obviously, a bit more background, not so much about me but about Marj, because apparently it’s not all about me!

Hopefully we can connect with the audience about how people meet. It’s quite weird how we all have this sort of path that leads us to the right person. There’ll be a lot of self-deprecation, and no doubt Marj will take the mick out of me quite a bit, and I’ll probably take the mick out of her. It will be quite light-hearted banter.

And then the ‘pots’ really is about, as it says on the tin, pots. It’s also about the studio, what our goals are, and what we can do within that. It’s also about Marj making other things.

Marj: And how we’ve both at times had to sort of make do and mend. You know, in certain periods of your life, you can’t afford the things that you want, so you make them.

The chapel really is the umbrella that we both sit under, quite literally. It’s at the heart of everything. I don’t have children, but sometimes when people have children, all they can think about and talk about is children. We’re a bit like that with the chapel, as it’s fundamental to everything we do.

You describe your relationship as a creative partnership and yourselves as partners in life and crime. How has working together on a project as ambitious as Capel Salem - the chapel - deepened your creative collaboration?
Marj: For me, the project has made me more confident as an individual. My voice in the creative decisions that we’ve made has gotten louder, I think.

Keith: Yeah. And rightly so. We’re both people who know what we like and like what we know. We’re very definite. I think the builder was a bit blown away by the fact that he would come to us with various options or decisions that had to be made about the building, and literally within five or 10 minutes we’d say, “Yeah, do that one.” And he would say, “Oh. Right. Okay.” So there’s not really much discussion needed because we know exactly what we want.

Marj: We always laugh when, say, we’re walking down the street and someone's deciding that they’re going to paint their front door and they’ve got seven different colours to see which one they want. And that always tickles me because I know exactly what I want. I don’t need to see a colour matched with another colour on a piece of wood. I know exactly what I want. But having the confidence to say that out loud has been a bit of a journey for me.

Keith: Without blowing our own trumpet here, we’re both very visually articulate. So we can quite easily envision a certain room in a certain style and a certain look, and then act accordingly.

Marj: What we say throughout the programme, and we will say throughout the show, is that our choices are our choices. It doesn’t matter if somebody else thinks it’s hideous; that’s fine. No one’s asking you to have it in your house. But we are thrilled with the choices that we’ve made. And there’s nothing that we’ve done that I look at every day and think, “God, we need to find the money to do that again.” Nothing.

Keith, you’re a beloved judge on The Great Pottery Throw Down, and Marj, you’re an actor and designer who’s championed sustainable craft for decades. How do you combine your distinct creative disciplines on stage for the live show?
Keith: Well, there’ll be a wheel on stage. And I’ll be throwing a few shapes and talking in a very loose way about my career and how I got to where I got to. But, as I said before, it’s not all about me. We’re planning on getting someone up from the audience to have a go on the wheel as well. I’ll give them a bit of a tutorial in my own inimitable style.

Marj: For me, it’s more significant to talk about what making does for us as human beings. So it’s not about the process of sitting down at the sewing machine or whatever it is you’re making. It’s about how we grow with everything that we make. And I think as women - I’m a woman of a certain age - it’s easy to lose sight of who you are and who you were and who you want to be. I think that’s something that we can address.

Capel Salem is your most ambitious project yet. What initially drew you to take on the restoration of a grade II listed 19th-century chapel in North Wales?
Marj: Wales is very specific, and the Welsh, especially up here, are very protective and proud of their heritage. It felt like the right place for us.

Keith: We looked at other places, and every time we looked at somewhere else, we kept being drawn back to here. It ticked all of our boxes. We’ve even got massive RSJs underneath the pottery studio, because the building’s on a hill, so we live on ground level but the pottery studio is above us. We can have a massive kiln there because the building came with these massive RSJs. We couldn’t have planned it, really.

And the way we’ve divvied up the areas of the chapel just works really well for us. Maybe not for everyone, but they do for us. We’ve never had our own driveway, and now we’ve got a car park!

And I have a Welsh background. Welsh ancestry. And you know, if my parents were alive now, I would hope they would be quite blown away by the fact that I’ve almost returned home in a way. Hiraeth is a Welsh word meaning homecoming; the call to home. And yeah, it’s fairly significant. And the fact that I’ve got the name Jones, as in ‘Jones the Potter’, does really help with being here.

Marj, you have a passion for making something beautiful from nothing. You were a champion of sustainable craft long before it became fashionable. Why is sustainable craft so important to you, and what message about making do you hope the audience takes away?
Marj: It’s interesting to talk about sustainable craft. It seems to be quite a modern concept, really. Ultimately, I’ve made things from nothing in the past because I really like things and I’ve never had a massive budget. So the way my brain works is that I think about something which I would quite like to own, or I see something that’s old and discarded.

What’s the significance of incorporating a live pottery demonstration into an evening that’s about more than just restoration?

Keith: It works really well visually. It can be funny. And to be perfectly honest, it’s where I’m most comfortable. So sitting on a stage throwing a pot is really quite relaxing in a way. And it’s also a bit of audience participation; getting someone up just to show people - or describe to people - what I’m doing with my hands as I’m making something. It’s very hard to explain or describe, so we’ll have a close-up camera right on the wheel, and people will be able to see my hands working with the clay. And it’s all about pressure and touch. It’s incredibly tactile. And most things, when you’re making anything with any natural material - whether it’s fabric, wood, glass, whatever it is - it’s all about the touch and the feel of your hands. And that’s what I hope to try and get across to people.

What would you like audiences to take away from Us, Pots And A Welsh Chapel?
Keith: It’s going to be a bit of a laugh. It’s going to be quite lighthearted. There’ll be a few stories in there that hopefully will hit home. But I hope people go away from the show thinking, “Yeah, I could have a go at doing that.”  You know, feeling like you can just, go on, feel the fear and do it anyway. You only live once. That’s really it. All the cliches, but it’s true. Hopefully people will go away feeling slightly more positive about not only their own life but about life in general and about community.

Keith Brymer Jones and Marj Hogarth bring their Us, Pots And A Welsh Chapel show to Warwick Arts Centre, Coventry, on Friday 12 June. The tour also stops off at the Regent Theatre, Stoke-on-Trent, on Saturday 13 June, and Theatre Severn, Shrewsbury, on Monday 15 June