Phil’s dreams have come true this weekend

Phil MacHugh, the Edinburgh-based businessman and TV star has had a fabulous few days leading up to this weekend “doing” the media rounds with his friend and colleague, Scottish actor, Martin Compston.

The duo have sat on several sofas promoting their new show – Martin Compston’s Norwegian Fling.

In the new series the two friends are off on their travels, this time driving from Oslo west to Bergen where they joined in the National Day parade celebrating with the Bergen Scottish Society, all with a film crew in tow.

Phil and Martin appeared together on the BBC The One Show on Thursday evening, Lorraine on ITV, Talk Today on Talk TV on Friday morning, but Phil was most excited about sitting on the high chairs on Saturday Kitchen, declaring it “the BEST Saturday of my life!”. The Saturday Kitchen vote was for either Martin’s Indian Spiced Chicken Wings with a Tamarind Dipping Sauce which won over Phil’s Porcini Bolognaise with Port and Truffle Butter.

Phil told The Edinburgh Reporter: “It was such a dream to be a guest on Saturday Kitchen this morning.

“I’m a big foodie and been a fan of the show for years and even though Martin won the battle for his food heaven, it’s now up to me to take the nation cod hunting!

“We’re so excited for audiences to experience Norway just like we did with the new series Norwegian Fling and been and hopefully the clips people have seen from our appearances on The One Show, ITV Lorraine, Talk TV and Saturday Kitchen over the past few days get audiences as excited as we are”

The second BBC series follows the success of the first, Martin Compston’s Scottish Fling which began in Compston’s hometown of Greenock, and was a riot of fun and giggles all over Scotland, including a trip to Phil’s family home on Uist. One of the funniest moments was when the Line of Duty star realised he would be doing all the driving – as the It Boy Phil does not drive. The actor was incredulous that he did not know this about his friend – and what it meant for the next six episodes…

Compston has spent quite a lot of time in Edinburgh recently making The Rig which was written by David Macpherson, and filmed and produced for Amazon Prime Video at FirstStage Studios in Leith, but the Scottish actor and his American wife live in Las Vegas.

The six episodes of Martin Compston’s Norwegian Fling will air on BBC Scotland from 22 February at 10pm and BBC Two UK wide on 23 February at 9pm and will also be available on iPlayer.