Just give him the Bafta now. If we must, let’s watch the remaining five episodes of Ludwig (BBC1, Wed) first, and then give the star David Mitchell the gong for most promising cosy crime drama -- because that's what it is, with bells on. While the set-up was slightly convoluted, once you got your head around that, it was a laugh-out loud hour of entertainment.
Mitchell plays John Taylor, a crossword setter who goes by the pen name of Ludwig. Incidentally, music nerds will enjoy the creative soundtrack with parts of Beethoven's Ninth and Seventh symphonies woven into the theme as we go along. Otherwise, everything is Seventies here, including his childhood, but also John’s thinking.
The design and production were superb, all brown and wooden with dangerous open staircases. We were spirited back to the moment when the twin boys John and James learned the traumatic news that dad had left home. But it's David Mitchell's witty, barely grown-up curmudgeon who transports us into his weird world when his sister-in-law Lucy (Anna Maxwell Martin) asks him to investigate the disappearance of his twin brother James.
John, however, doesn't like going beyond his own door man let alone travel to downtown Cambridge to impersonate his detective brother. His world to that point has involved music, crosswords and a wall-mounted mustard-coloured telephone -- with a cord! When Lucy books a car for her brother-in-law, John screams, “A taxi outside my house?!!” To be honest for the first 10.