After becoming one of the U.K.’s biggest scripted shows of 2024, the new detective series Ludwig has finally premiered on BritBox in North America. Ludwig is a genuine comedic, thrilling delight; if you’re anything like me and you love British murder mystery favorites like Midsomer Murders or anything by Agatha Christie, I promise, Ludwig is right up your street.
A large part of the show’s appeal is down to its star, David Mitchell, a British comic legend known for roles in comedy hits such as Peep Show and That Mitchell and Webb Look, as well as hundreds of appearances on Britain’s comedic panel shows like Mock the Week, QI, and, of course, Would I Lie to You? Mitchell brings his unique brand of slightly awkward and incredibly clever humor to the series, resulting in a fantastic new amateur detective who is brilliantly easy to root for.
Everything about John “Ludwig” Taylor’s life is slightly awkward. He’s essentially a recluse, one who designs puzzles for a living, until he’s suddenly whisked off to Cambridge by his sister-in-law Lucy (Anna Maxwell Martin) when his twin brother vanishes. The answer? Take his brother’s place as a high-ranking police detective, of course. Surely, no one will be any the wiser.
There’s a new detective in town
Yes, it’s a slightly bonkers premise, but this show is undeniably fun and compelling, and Mitchell’s character is at the heart of it all. When I spoke to him about the series in February, I asked him what drew him to playing the character. Why take on the role of an amateur detective?
“I think what I liked about it is I could immediately see how the comedy and the crime-solving sort of worked together in that premise. Obviously, the idea of someone being a fish out of water, someone claiming to be a police officer when they’re not just because they look identical to the person who is a police officer, can get away with a sort of greater incompetence, a greater eccentric behavior than anyone else could in that sort of situation. That immediately struck me as having great comic possibilities. And then, obviously, the fact that he’s a puzzle setter and therefore has an analytical and logical mind of that kind makes it plausible that he would, in an unusual way, he’d be actually quite good at solving the crimes, even if he isn’t good at assimilating himself into a police workplace. So I just thought, there’s the comedy and the crime-solving, and I just liked that from the start.”
This character is more than just a shockingly good detective or a socially awkward recluse. For someone so withdrawn, I noticed John’s character is surprisingly empathetic, and that’s a huge part of what makes him so likable. When I asked Mitchell what his favorite emotional moment was in the show, he talked about a scene at the end of the first episode, when John begins to remember what it was like for him and his brother when their father suddenly left, and how that same situation is now affecting John’s nephew, Henry (Dylan Hughes). That moment reveals much about John’s character and John’s relationship with his brother.
“The way the first episode ends, where he’s, you know, essentially confronting, remembering his own father leaving, and he’s remembering how his brother was the one who really coped with that and was there to comfort their mother whereas John kind of disappeared into himself. Seeing that happen again when he sees Lucy go to his nephew and comfort him, he’s kind of out of it on the sidelines and retreats back to his puzzle-solving and puzzle-setting self. In playing it, I knew what it had to do in the story and I hoped I was doing it right, but I was very pleased with how it came together and how that looked in the show in the end, so I was proud of that moment.”
The actor also praised Robert McKillop, who directed Ludwig’s first three episodes, for striking the right tonal balance. Bringing out the “emotional side,” the “comic side,” and the “thriller-ish mystery side” can be a difficult equation to navigate for a new show. A series like this needs to ensure audiences are invested not only in the whodunnit question but the characters and their growth, too.
What makes a murder mystery good? What makes a detective work?
That doesn’t mean the cases are left by the wayside, however. In fact, each episode of Ludwig boasts two mysteries. The larger, overarching mystery of John’s brother’s disappearance, and the smaller, one-off local murder mysteries that John is forced to solve in his brother’s place. That’s quite rare in British detective dramas. Usually, a series like this will either solve one major mystery per season—think of shows like Shetland, Broadchurch, and Unforgotten—or solve one new mystery per episode, as what happens in the aforementioned Midsomer Murders, Vera, Grantchester, and more.
That dual narrative structure is something Mitchell genuinely appreciated about creator Mark Brotherhood’s concept for the show. “I think you want to give an audience some resolution when you’ve sat them there for an hour,” he explained. “The idea that it’s just part of one much longer story, sometimes that can be done brilliantly, but sometimes you feel ‘Oh, that wasn’t a focus of my evening, I just watched a bit more of it,’ so I think it’s great that there’s an ongoing story but also there’s something for you that will be resolved that week. It sort of feels like it’s added value for the audience, really … If you missed an episode it’s not the end of the world, and if you only watch one episode there’s something for you there.”
The Brits are famous for creating beloved mysteries. That’s why there are so many to compare Ludwig with, whether it’s to examine how the show is structured, the power of the cases, or even the show’s basic, instigating premise. Perhaps more important than any of that is the strength of a show’s leading detective. What makes them worthy of years-long devotion? What makes a genuinely great detective, even a seemingly amateur one, stand out from the massive crowd? Naturally, I had to ask Mitchell if any of Britain’s many established detectives influenced his performance, and the answer might surprise you.
“Not consciously. My brain was telling me at every point … I’m not an immersive actor. I just try to say the lines as if they’re real. I was aware that there are a lot of shots in the show of me thinking and working stuff out and that kind of thing. I suppose I had in mind the fact that in detective shows I really like, I’m a big fan of Inspector Morse, I love that show, and what John Thaw has the courage to do in that show is not that much. You know what the story is, so you don’t have to project everything that’s happening in your brain, because people don’t. If everything else is right, a certain amount of stillness will still hold the audience’s attention. So I told myself don’t overdo it, facially, and hopefully, I got it about right.”
Well, Inspector Morse ran for eight seasons and spawned two gorgeous spinoffs—one of which, Endeavour, is one of my all-time favorite shows. Who knows what could be on the cards for amateur detective John “Ludwig” Taylor? At least we already know that season 2 is officially in the works.
New episodes of Ludwig are released weekly on Thursdays on BritBox in the U.S. All episodes are available now on BBC iPlayer in the U.K.
Published: Mar 21, 2025 11:11 PM UTC