This Thursday BritBox offers Americans the chance to puzzle along with “Ludwig,” David Mitchell’s hit detective series about a most unlikely detective. Mitchell plays identical twins. John Taylor is a reclusive puzzle maker who publishes puzzle books under the pen name “Ludwig.
” His twin James Taylor is a successful DCI (Detective Chief Inspector) in the Cambridge police force. When James goes missing, his wife Lucy (Anna Maxwell Martin) asks John’s help. That means John shows up at the police station impersonating his brother, awkwardly at first, and invariably being sucked into cases and old-fashioned crime solving.
“I’d been saying for a few years I loved detective shows and whodunnits and would like to be in one, if at all possible,” Mitchell, 50, explained in a Zoom interview from London where he was costumed, in the midst of filming. “So a producer I’ve worked with for years said, I’ll have a look ‘round. And in 2019 he sent me this two-page summary by a writer called Mark Brotherhood, which is what ‘Ludwig’ turned into.
“It was pretty full-formed on those two pages. I immediately thought, Well, that’s something I can play comically. A guy who looks identical to the policeman he’s claiming to be but is otherwise the worst suited person to work in a big, busy police station.
“I thought, If we have John doing that, it will be funny. And if that can be combined with an intriguing, overarching plot and intriguing weekly murder mysteries.