Martin Compston’s Norwegian Fling is launching on BBC Scotland on 22 February.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00 You've got a headland.
00:02 [Laughter]
00:04 My job is done.
00:05 I'll get a hunny to do it, I grew up for a square sausage.
00:08 Norway, what was the idea? How did this all happen?
00:12 Well, I guess Scotland was kick-started season one and it resonated so well with people
00:18 and then we thought, where do we go? We've got the world as our oyster.
00:22 Just went, wob it up there.
00:24 We wanted to tie season one into whatever we're going next and ultimately there's a lot of affiliations
00:33 and connections to Norway, specifically in Orkney and Shetland.
00:38 We thought it was quite a good country to explore.
00:40 We don't really know much about it, I don't think it's even spoken about widely enough about the country.
00:46 It was quite an easy option when it came on the table, wasn't it, to try it out.
00:52 And it's right across the water, it's right there.
00:55 We're saying Bergen's closer to the part of Scotland than London is.
00:59 So it's quite strange that we don't, maybe we all, when we get a holiday we go south to try and get some sun.
01:05 But no, I feel quite ashamed actually it took me that long to go now because it's such a...
01:11 It's never really had the attention, ever.
01:13 There are a lot of historical links between Scotland and Norway.
01:16 I wonder, as two lads about Norway, whether you found people who connected with the fact that you were Scottish
01:23 and had those conversations about where you're from and stuff like that.
01:26 We were lucky, we went on National Day, there's the Independence Day,
01:30 there's the whole country's on the champagne and hot dogs at nine in the morning.
01:35 But there's a huge parade going through Bergen and we were a part of the parade with the pipe band,
01:39 with the Bergen pipe band and there was people from Gurok.
01:42 I just feel at home all of a sudden.
01:43 It was incredible.
01:44 People from Belgium and people, it was amazing and it was brilliant to hear the pipes as part of this amazing parade.
01:51 I think it was Robert the Bruce's sister was buried in the little cathedral behind where we were going.
01:56 For the first series, Martin, you were a bit out of your comfort zone in the sense that Phil probably knew some of the places
02:02 you were going a bit better and there was elements of that.
02:05 But you could still retreat, you still had a can of Tents at the end of the night.
02:09 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
02:10 It wasn't that uncomfortable, you're not going to somewhere like Norway where all of a sudden the food and even the city life is just completely different.
02:16 You're spot on because with the first one, as you said, there's a safety net there, knowing the Scottish,
02:22 you know you're going to get a bit of the part of each other and stuff.
02:24 So in this one we were really going into the unknown, you're going like,
02:27 are we still going to have the same kind of chemistry with their contributors, is it going to be fun?
02:31 I mean they're quite direct in Norway, which could be funny, but they're a different breed.
02:36 But actually I think the series works better than the first one because of that,
02:41 because there is no safety net for us, we just had to really get stuck into it.
02:45 And it was amazing finding out all the different things and getting part of the culture.
02:50 Yeah, really try to absorb it and get involved in it, not just sort of phone in.
02:55 Amazingly there's no hierarchy across Norway, regardless of where you come from, who you are, your status, your job title.
03:02 They don't have a class system. The class system is just brilliant.
03:07 So you feel very, they're very warming that way and they can relate to you very quickly.
03:12 After watching the first episode, are you both naturally adventurous people?
03:17 Like Martin, when you're away on holiday, do you say to the wife, where's the nearest zip line?
03:21 I do, I do love all that stuff, he's not as a kid.
03:27 I usually find the flume park, that's my adventure skill.
03:31 No, anything like that, I love jumping off stuff.
03:34 Weirdly, I'm not overly great by it, but I kind of get a buzz out of the scare of it.
03:39 I think that's why we kind of dovetail quite well, because he likes his food in the fine restaurants,
03:45 and the nice wines and all that kind of carry on, and I just like, as I say, just falling off stuff and getting put through the ringer.