naveed Khan – actor, potter, dad

Naveed Khan is known to those of us who follow Moo Like A Monkey as the reluctant toy shop assistant in their wonderful social media posts.  When not supporting his wife, Charlotte, in their award-winning boutique, now online, Nav can be found acting in the theatre and on television, and also creating his own line of ceramics as Naveed Khan Pottery.

At the beginning of 2026, Naveed was part of The Great Pottery Throw Down on Channel 4, making it to the quarter final.  Folkelife wanted to talk to him about his many talents, and which, if possible, is his favourite.

“My pottery journey began about fifteen years ago, when my wife, Charlotte and I decided to do a pottery class together.  We also started to watch The Great Pottery Throw Down and really enjoyed it.  So then, for my 40th birthday, Charlotte gave me evening classes for a term at The Cube Ceramics.

“I just loved it!  I can remember I was the only beginner that started that term. Rosa, the teacher, who also runs Sandgate Ceramics, asked me where I would like to start, and I wanted to have a go at the wheel.  I sat down at one of them and loved it so much that I never thought to try to make anything another way.”

a moment of silence

“It was wonderful.  I just remember it was the first thing I have ever done where, sitting at the wheel, there was complete silence in my head.  Everything else switched off.  I’ve never had that experience before.  Charlotte noticed me talking about it all week, and the closer we got to Thursday evening, the more I would be saying what I was going to make in pottery that night.  She’d never known me talk with such passion about anything before.  I just loved it.  So I signed up for the following term.  It was just 2 hours a week, for 10 weeks, and I ended up doing it for two years. 

“But, when you add up all the time I did, it’s not that long.  I also noticed that I hadn’t actually learned the basics of coil building or making a pinch pot.  I had been so taken with the wheel.”

a wheel in the basement

“Cube Ceramics closed down, which was a real shame.  I then couldn’t practice anywhere.  Charlotte bought me a wheel for my next birthday, but we didn’t have space in the house for it.  We kept it in a friend’s garage for a while, and then we put it in our basement.  It’s always been a plan to turn our basement into an AirBnB, but we’ve been here ten years, and it hasn’t happened yet.  So, I thought we could turn part of it into a studio for me.  In so doing, we put a door in, and a window.  It now means though, we can’t get the wheel out.  There will forever be a potter’s studio in the basement of this house. Oh well!

“I then applied for Throw Down.  It was Charlotte’s encouragement that made me do it.  It was also an incredibly long process, and I did get bored.  I hadn’t quite finished my application and had left it, so thought it had been deleted.  Then, a couple of days before the deadline, they emailed me to see if I was still interested, as my application was still open.  I finished it off, and sent it in.”

applying for throw down

“There’s a long process of phone calls, zoom calls, and auditions.  They want to test your knowledge and find out if you’re interesting enough to put on the telly.  Then, the last audition is to actually make something.  This is when I decided, the night before, to practice a coil pot as I’d never made one before!  It was lucky too, as I had to make one in the audition as well. 

“I have to say, I loved the whole experience.  We had so much fun.  I might have been a little naïve in going in as I thought they might teach us a few things first.  As it was, I had to teach myself how to do something in two days before filming.  But I loved it, and learned a lot, and made some good friends too.  There is a lot of time sitting in the Green Room between filming, And that’s the time you get to chat to each other and get to make friends.  I can remember one Sunday Kaz, who has a great singing voice, started to sing 1980s, old school hymns.  We all joined in!  

“I love the pottery, and I have really enjoyed my time on The Great Pottery Throw Down, but it’s always going to be the thing I do to wind down and escape from stresses in life.  I love it, but my main job is I’m an actor.”

a is for acting

“I initially studied Architecture. The first year is an art foundation course, and I loved that.  When, however, they got onto the strength of steel beams, I thought ‘this isn’t for me!’.  My brother is an architect, and you study for seven years.  I wasn’t going to be able to cope with that.

“That summer, I was in a play in Edinburgh Festival, with a teacher training placement lined up.  The funding for that fell through, but I remembered one of the actors asking which drama school I’d been to.  So, I looked into drama schools, and applied, and got in to the Oxford School Of Drama which was just down the road from home.  Since then, I’ve been a professional actor for about seventeen years, and acting non-professionally for over twenty.”

moving to folkestone

“Being an actor in London does mean that you can find work when you’re not in a play or show.  A lot of actors are tour guides; it’s adhoc work, but still performing in a way.  When we moved to Folkestone in 2016, I thought this was going to be the make-or-break of my career.  But actually, it’s been the strength of it. 

“Before I would sign up to any offer going, now I need to be more mindful of whether it’s worth my time to be away from the family, and if it’s going to pay enough.  It’s sad to be so ruthless, but it’s true.  And, in all honesty, in being more choosy, I’ve been offered much better parts.  It’s forced me to value myself more, which is important.  Maybe I’ve grown into my casting bracket too.  They say that of actors, you have a niche area that suits you, and maybe I’ve found that now.”

theatre or television

“I love doing both, but if I had to choose, I would say theatre is my first love.  There’s nothing like the buzz you get when on stage and connecting with the audience.  And, with AI coming in, it will never replace live theatre, so for a long-term job perspective, that’s where I’m going to work!  But I love telly too.

“There was an advert I did for the NHS which was about having a stroke.  It was trying to highlight the very subtle signs of stroke so that people could recognise what was going on.  In it, I’m a painter, and I can’t raise my arm.  It’s a big responsibility to show off these tiny changes that could mean, if people can recognise what’s going on, they could save someone’s life.  On the set, we had the UK’s leading expert in stroke, so I could ask him about all these details to make sure I was getting it right.”

second to toby jones

“I’m currently in Glitch, a play about the post office scandal; the biggest miscarriage of justice in modern British history.  Our play is centred around a lady called Pam Stubbs, who, once the trial got to court, she was integral in getting everyone together.  She had started to make a paper copy of all the transactions.  So every time she made a sale, she wrote it down, as well as it going through the computer system.  This way, you could start to see the discrepancies.  In Glitch, we all have various parts to play, and Alan Bates is one of mine.  He was played by Toby Jones in the ITV drama.  It’s the second time I’ve played a part that Toby Jones did first.  I was in a production of the Parlour Song by Jez Butterworth, and Toby Jones played my character in the premiere.

“I’ve got a part in Riz Ahmed’s Amazon Prime show Bait which is great.  Then in the summer there’s a feature film coming out called Fuze which is about an unexploded WW2 bomb, and I play a health and safety inspector called Hardeep.  There’s lots more happening, and I’m looking forward to it.”