Cosy crime is the current opiate of the masses, and things don’t get much cosier than David Mitchell as a cryptic crossword setter pootling around Cambridge in a tweed jacket to the strains of Beethoven. He is basically Miss Marple with a beard. We may have reached peak homely.
Mitchell is a very witty man, as anyone who has seen Peep Show and Would I Lie to You? knows. But in this first episode of Ludwig (BBC1), perfect as he is for the part of John Taylor, a nerdish, puzzle-solving introvert with a 20-year-old analogue mobile phone, the vehicle feels at times almost too gentle for him. As if he is only being allowed to use 75 per cent of his funny bones.
Three quarters