Actress Victoria Balnaves is flying high. The 31-year-old has kicked off 2009 by fronting the WKD "man flu" adverts as the put-upon wife, and taking on a more serious role in Scotland's Give Blood campaign.

She said: "The last year has been pretty busy for me, and I've just finished filming a comedy sketch show called The Cowards for BBC4. The director was Steve Bendelack, who did Little Britain.

"He's an amazing guy and I was completely in awe of him."

"I was quite inexperienced compared to others on the set and I didn't realise that the cameras kept rolling off-set, taking in everything we were doing."

She added "I sat in the bar one night with Steve and some of the other guys and we got chatting about tartan. He was saying he's got a wedding coming up soon and he'd quite fancy wearing a kilt, so I'm trying to persuade him to do it."

"I want to make the director of Little Britain an honorary Scot!"

Kinross-born Victoria is looking forward to bringing her proud parents along to the awards back in two weeks' time.

She said: "I've got a whole table booked to bring along all the family. It's going to be a great night regardless of the outcome."

Victoria has started a project of her own making a documentary about the life of Tom Weir, the legendary Scottish climber, author and broadcaster. She said: "I've always been a fan and when he died in 2006 I decided to make a film about his life."

"I've had contributions from Peter Mullan, Dougie MacLean and Alex Salmond so it's been really good to make."

Victoria, who has been nominated for the Best New Scottish Actor/Actress award, said she was completely shocked when she heard she had been put forward for the gong.

She added "I'm a fan of the other people nominated in my category - I'm not sure people really know me compared to them."

"I'm a massive fan of Harry Potter so I'm really looking forward to meeting Sean Biggerstaff, who's also been nominated, because he was in some of the films."

Real Radio - Scottish Variety Awards 2009>>