Can you think of a four-letter synonym for “snug”? How about an eight-letter adjective meaning “twist-filled”? Or a four-letter word, thought to be derived from Polari, denoting something “out of style or unfashionable”? These are, I’m sure, the sort of questions that puzzle-setter John “Ludwig” Taylor, the hero of BBC One’s new comedy-drama Ludwig, would have no trouble answering. Starring David Mitchell as the drippy cruciverbalist-turned-reluctant crime solver, Ludwig is indeed cosy, tortuous, and, yes, more than a little bit naff.
The story begins with John immersed in a life of hermetic serenity; just him and his puzzles. One night, he gets a phone call from sister-in-law Lucy (Anna Maxwell Martin, well-pitched here), telling him there’s a taxi outside his house, ready to drive him 140 miles to her home in Cambridge. As it turns out, John’s identical twin brother – a police detective – has gone missing, leaving behind only a cryptic note to his wife. In a left-brained effort to solve this fraternal mystery, John agrees to infiltrate the local police force, and – long story short – ends up using his crossword nous to solve murder cases while posing as his twin.
Thus does John embark on the well-trodden path of the neurodivergent-coded crime-solving savant. It’s a cliche that’s been mined down to the bedrock by this point: Ludwig’s misfit protagonist follows in the footsteps of shows such as Monk, Sherlock, and Psych. Comparisons have also been drawn with twee British procedurals such as Jonathan Creek and Father Brown; there’s more than a scintilla of Richard Osman’s Thursday Murder Club in the stew.
Ludwig has a robust supporting cast that includes The Office’s Ralph Ineson as a chief constable and Dipo Ola as John’s inscrutable partner, as well as a few enjoyably random guest stars (Derek Jacobi one minute, Karl Pilkington the next). But this is Mitchell’s show – so it’s a shame that his effectiveness in the main role is somewhat mixed. There is an undeniable affability to Mitchell as a performer; an effect that seems to convey natural and genuine intelligence in an instant. But there’s something missing, too. In his best performances (namely, uptight heel Mark Corrigan in Channel 4’s Peep Show), Mitchell excels at weeding out the sanctimony and subtle nastiness in his characters: Ludwig, all too pure, sees this toolkit left idle.
With all that said, I could see Ludwig proving a hit. We are – as the runaway success of shows such as Death in Paradise suggests – a nation that seemingly cannot get enough of whimsical, innocuous crime procedurals. (Ludwig screenwriter Mark Brotherhood has in fact previously written for Death in Paradise and Father Brown.) Sometimes you want a puzzle you just don’t have to think about – and as escapist pap goes, you could do worse than this.