Martin Compston is swapping police investigations for casinos, cowboy country and the Grand Canyon as he takes viewers inside the American city he now calls his second home.
The Greenock-born Line of Duty star fronts new three-part Channel 4 series Martin Compston: Living Las Vegas, offering an insider’s look at the famous Nevada city and attempting to discover what lies beyond the Strip.
Compston has spent years splitting his life between Scotland and Las Vegas, where his American wife Tianna is from and where the couple are raising their son.
The actor says his normal existence in Nevada is far removed from the version of Vegas experienced by millions of tourists, with much of his time spent living an ordinary family life in the suburbs.
The idea behind the series is to change that. Compston sets out to explore the people, neighbourhoods, food, landscapes and occasionally extravagant experiences found across his adopted home.
“Greenock’s always going to be my home, but that place has become a huge part of my life,” he said.
The opening episode begins with Vegas at its most excessive. Compston gets inside a $25,000 hotel suite which comes with its own basketball court before being allowed behind the scenes at the Bellagio fountains, where he joins the maintenance team responsible for keeping one of the Strip’s most famous attractions operating.
He also visits the Little White Wedding Chapel as a British couple get married and later heads to the Palms Hotel casino, where he tries his hand at gambling.
Across the three hour-long episodes, the programme heads well beyond the traditional tourist trail. Compston explores hidden food spots, newer areas of the city and the surrounding Nevada landscape, with the original programme brief promising everything from adrenaline-fuelled adventures to discoveries in the Mojave Desert.
Among the places he discovers is the city’s 18b Arts District, an area of independent restaurants and breweries away from the Strip. Compston has said filming introduced him to places he has continued to visit since production ended.
The journey also takes him to the Grand Canyon, while another part of the series sees the actor getting on horseback for a taste of cowboy life.
Living Las Vegas marks another move into travel television for Compston. He previously worked with production company Tern Television on BBC Two series Martin Compston’s Scottish Fling and Martin Compston’s Norwegian Fling.
The new programme is again made by Tern, part of Zinc Media Group. David Marshall is executive producer, Rod Tamime is series director and Emma Fentiman is producer. The series was co-funded by the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority and distributor BossaNova Media.
Martin Compston: Living Las Vegas begins on Channel 4 at 10pm on Wednesday 23 September. The series consists of three episodes.