Ludwig: (My rating 5+)
A Simply Delightful Series of Puzzles
Ludwig, just what we need to launch off into the summer break, a BBC puzzle within a series of puzzles mixed with light comedy. John Taylor sets the most challenging crosswords under the name of Ludwig. More comfortable with complex logical challenges than people, John lives alone quite happily. But one day he gets a call from his brother James’ wife Lucy. James is a DCI in Cambridge. He’s gone missing. Lucy asks John to help her find out what has happened to him. And the only way John can do that is take his brother’s place as a policeman. The brothers are identical twins.
Comedian David Mitchell plays John (and James). Anna Maxwell Martin is Lucy. Lucy is one tough cookie and determined to find her husband. John agrees to the ruse only in order to get to James’ desk to search his papers. Once there, however, he is swept up into actual murder investigations. He may look like his brother but his version of “DCI Taylor” is a fish out of water. Forced to wear contacts instead of his comfortable glasses, he fights the urge to put his pens into a jacket pen holder and has the habit – disturbing to his adopted colleagues – of paying attention to the oddest details. The show is funny without being silly.
Over six episodes in this first season on Britbox, John puzzles out the locked-room mysteries, surprising himself and everyone else. Meanwhile, Lucy conducts her own investigation and keeps pushing John to stop solving murders and focus on his “real job” of getting clues to his brother’s last case, the one that led to his disappearance. The cast is excellent and Derek Jacobi shows up in one episode.
How long can the ruse be kept up, and what about James? Seems there will be a second season. Easy to give this series a 5+.
Funny without being silly - yes! Great cast and writing. SO GOOD, so entertaining!!
My husband and I really enjoyed this series, I look forward to the next series which I know is in production but wont be out for bit. A different look at a police story, it was rather refreshing to see this take on it and John ( David Mitchell) surprises himself that what he has been doing his whole life can help solve crimes, The actress who plays his wife Anna Maxwell-Martin is in a lot of things. You can find her in the Bletchley Circle which was rather good as well.