There won’t be a dry eye in the house when Keith Brymer Jones takes to the stage at this year’s Fringe By The Sea. The renowned potter and seven-season judge on The Great Pottery Throw Down will be chatting to his partner (and Still Game player) Marj Hogarth about the influence of clay on his life. As regular viewers of his show will know, it’s going to get emotional…

‘I’m a hard, hard bastard, really,’ says Brymer Jones. ‘People ask me all the bloody time “are you going to cry?” Without looking too psychologically into it, I think it’s actually a strength showing your emotions rather than a weakness.  I feel a connection for the potters, and if viewers at home relate to what I’m doing, that’s great.’

Brymer Jones and Hogarth arrive in Scotland on the back of a 22-date UK tour with a live event which allows him to throw some pots, reflect on his punk career with The Wigs (‘that was a skinnier version of me’, he remarks ruefully), and discuss perceptions of his on-screen persona (‘I’m not an actor on screen, that’s just who I am’).

‘This all started out when I was doing a pop video as Adele with a parody of “Rolling In The Deep”; they got me into a dress, and into this mansion, and the clip went viral. It just so happened that the head honcho in charge of Bake Off and Sewing Bee was looking for a new format and they saw this cross-dressing nutter-potter guy and that was that. Life’s strange, isn’t it?’

The rest indeed is, as they say, TV history, with Brymer Jones winning the hearts of a nation simply by being his empathic, encouraging self to a diverse group of aspiring ceramics artists. ‘I’m not one for pretentions; I’m a blue-collar artist. Without sounding like a tosser, I’ve been doing this 40 years, and I’m not going to fluff it when I throw a pot.’

Contestants on the show are doing something different and there has to be a criteria to judge. ‘They have different tasks, like making a pottery model of Shirley Bassey,’ says Brymer Jones. ‘That’s not something I’d do myself. The funny thing about that one was we got in touch with her to ask if she was OK with it, but she stipulated we must describe her as Dame Shirley Bassey. Making that kind of pottery isn’t my own cup of tea, but it’s very creative, and I do get very emotional when I see the wonder of creativity. Otherwise, ceramics could just be making a toilet; and who wants to make a bloody toilet?’

Keith Brymer Jones: A Life In Clay, Big Top, North Berwick, 7 August, 11.15am.