Britbox’s Utterly Charming Ludwig Is a Winning Combination of Puzzles and Crime Solving

The cozy British mystery has always been with us. Still, it’s been having something of a moment over the past decade or so—no doubt bolstered by a real world that seems increasingly depressing and our collective desire for an escape from, well…everything. Shows like Father Brown, Agatha Raisin, Queens of Mystery, Whitstable Pearl, Death in Paradise, and what feels like an endless parade of similar series are racking up viewers around the globe thanks to their picturesque settings, lack of gore and overt violence, and embrace of character development. (Most of them, notably, are also surprisingly funny, given that their central subject is usually murder.) The six-part drama Ludwig is the latest buzzy member of this genre, a series that broke all kinds of records for the BBC last year and arrives on BritBox at a moment when pretty much everyone could use a reason to check out and look at the pretty scenery of Cambridge for a while. 

A series that’s geared to appeal to the broadest possible swath of viewers—if this genre isn’t normally your cup of genre tea, trust me when I tell you that even non-mystery buffs will be charmed—nothing about Ludwig is particularly groundbreaking in terms of plot or subject matter. It is oftentimes incredibly silly. And yet, thanks to its appealingly oddball eponymous main character and a tremendously talented cast, led by David Mitchell of Peep Show fame, the sum of this show’s parts is better than it has any right to be. 

This story follows John Taylor (Mitchell), a socially awkward bachelor, recluse, and acclaimed puzzle setter who goes by the name of “Ludwig” professionally. He’s forced out of his comfort zone when his twin brother James vanishes, and his sister-in-law and childhood BFF  Lucy (Anna Maxwell Martin) enlists his help to try and figure out what happened. There’s just one small issue—to do so, John must assume James’s identity as a Cambridgeshire police detective. What begins as an in-and-out heist to grab some documents rapidly spirals out of control and soon John is trying to convince his brother’s colleagues that he’s one of them, searching for clues about James’s disappearance in department files, and juggling multiple cases at the same time (despite not knowing basic police phrases like “post-mortem”). 

The twist, here, of course, is that John’s puzzle-solving mind is apparently equally suited to solving murders, and his love of logic helps him crack several seemingly impossible mysteries. Each case of the week over the season’s six episodes (all of which were available for review)  is a kind of puzzle, from reverse chess to something that’s essentially that “what’s the difference?” game so many of us have played at the bar. Each episode (to varying degrees) also investigates the mystery of James’s disappearance and the reasons he might have had to run.

The cases of the week are quirky and fairly low-stakes (if it’s possible to say that about a show that revolves around someone getting killed), their complicated solutions little more than a chance for John to show off. Unlike many mysteries that encourage the audience to try and solve the case along with (or sometimes ahead of) the cops they’re watching, Ludwig is basically here to present a seemingly unsolvable logic problem and allow John to suss out the answer. It’s very Poirot-like, in that the conclusion almost always plays out in front of an audience of half a dozen people, and they—like the folks watching at home, are meant to simply be impressed by his brilliance as he announces the answer. But it’s also oddly charming—there’s something strangely refreshing about watching a grouchy hermit blossom under the praise of others, if only because this is a genre that’s often so focused on Sherlock-style borderline sociopaths who are already fully convinced of their own greatness (and often full of themselves). 

Admittedly, Ludwig’s basic premise relies on its audience to suspend a great deal of disbelief. We’re meant to accept that multiple people who spent significant time with James in a professional setting simply won’t notice when he starts behaving like a person who’s never been to a crime scene before, that John’s skill at puzzle setting makes him some kind of murder-solving savant, that a vast conspiracy has been happening within the department that’s dangerous enough to send not only James but several other people into what appears to be active hiding. But, once you just lean in and accept that John’s charade really really should not be possible, you can get down to the business of enjoying it. 

Because Ludwig is a ton of fun—genuinely funny, thoroughly warm-hearted, and fully committed to the bit it’s trying to pull off. Although John’s facade is laughably thin, the show still manages to build genuine tension around both the threat of his secret being discovered and the truth about what has happened to his missing sibling. Mitchell, unsurprisingly, is pitch-perfect throughout. The role isn’t a huge stretch for him as an actor (if you’ve seen Peep Show, you’ve seen this performance before) but it’s fully tailored to every one of his strengths and he seizes every chance to shine. 

Maxwell Martin gets less showy material but infuses what could be a thankless sidekick role with nuance and no small bit of pathos. The unspoken history between John and Lucy is palpable, but the show keeps things pleasantly bittersweet, smartly never tipping over into outright love triangle territory. Instead, Maxwell Martin digs into Lucy’s fear for and frustration with her missing husband, whose decision to shut her out she doesn’t understand. The rest of the supporting cast is equally solid, though the amount they’re given to do varies. Dipo Ola’s DI provides an excellent foil for Mitchell as James’s new partner DI Russell Carter, and Gerran Howell’s hero-worshiping DC Evans is a charming stand-in for the son John himself never had. 

Like so many series of this ilk, the cases aren’t really the point of anything we’re watching. They’re pleasant enough diversions, easily wrapped up in under an hour and bolstered by the overarching Taylor family mystery in the background. But what you’ll stick around for is Mitchell, whose charming awkwardness effortlessly carries the show past its most contrived moments and exposes the sympathetic heart beneath. If anything, the lesson of Ludwig isn’t that we need to be a genius to help the people around us—-it’s that we just need to be ourselves. 

Ludwig will premiere on March 20 on BritBox. 

Lacy Baugher Milas is the Books Editor at Paste Magazine, but loves nerding out about all sorts of pop culture. You can find her on Twitter and Bluesky at @LacyMB

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