| Worth seeing: | to enjoy David Mitchell's grumpy puzzle-setter using his skills of logic and reason to solve murders that are beyond the grasp of the most seasoned detectives |
| Featuring: | David Mitchell, Anna Maxwell Martin, Derek Jacobi, Dipo Ola, Dorothy Atkinson, Dylan Hughes, Felicity Kendal, Gerran Howell, Hammed Animashaun, Izuka Hoyle, Karl Pilkington, Ralph Ineson, Rose Ayling-Ellis, Sir Derek Jacobi, Sophie Willan |
| Key crew: | Jill Robertson, Robert McKillop, Georgie Fallon, Mark Brotherhood |
| Channel: | BBC iPlayer, BBC1 |
| Length: | 58 minutes |
| Episodes: | 6 |
| Broadcast date: | 25th September 2024 |
| Country: | UK |
WHAT’S IT ABOUT?
John Taylor (David Mitchell) is an acclaimed puzzle setter, working under the cover of the moniker Ludwig. He lives alone in his late mother’s house and is perfectly happy with his lot.
His solitude is disrupted by a desperate call from his sister-in-law Lucy (Anna Maxwell Martin), summoning him to her home in Cambridge. He arrives to the shocking news that his twin brother James – a senior police detective – has gone missing in mysterious circumstances.
Lucy believes that the clue to James’ disappearance is in his office at work and only his twin brother John is able to get access without arousing suspicion.
Reluctantly, John agrees to take his brother’s place to try to find the key to the puzzle but his partner, DI Carter (Dipo Ola), keeps turning up and dragging him off to investigate a murder.
And despite his inexperience in the field, his logical mind and puzzle-solving acumen make him better than any of his new colleagues at finding the killer.
He’s soon having so much fun solving crimes, he loses sight of why he’s even there in the first place. Lucy doesn’t – and tired of waiting for him, she heads off and starts looking for her husband herself.
WHAT’S IT LIKE?
Ludwig is a peculiar confection – a charming and gentle yet sardonic murder mystery – with a different murder each week, while the bigger mystery unfolds more slowly across six episodes.
It’s very much a Jonathan Creek for the modern generation, with a crime-solving magician replaced by a grumpy puzzle-setter – similarly using powers of logic in a way that the finest detectives can’t quite grasp.
Ludwig is at its best when he’s accidentally solving murders, with the overarching storyline feeling less compelling – a little misleading and often arch.
And the final episode – in which we supposedly come close to the final piece of the puzzle reaches a somewhat unsatisfactory conclusion.
But there’s so much joy to be had from the fish-out-of-water humour, the creative crime-solving and the sights of Cambridge that minor frustrations with the main narrative can be forgiven.
It also means that by the time season two arrives, as long as they can keep up the mini-murder-mysteries on a weekly basis, it doesn’t really matter if the rest of the plot doesn’t quite hang together.