Like many of us, I have become increasingly disillusioned with the role of police in today’s society. I’m not an “ACAB” (look it up… actually, don’t) type, but there have been too many instances in my personal experience of a clear crime being reported to the cops and them basically going ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ before spectacularly failing to do anything whatsoever. Despite this, I love a good detective drama, police procedural, anything like that. And so it was with some curiosity that I decided to start watching Ludwig from the BBC, a David Mitchell-fronted detective drama with a bit of a twist.
In Ludwig, Mitchell’s character John Taylor is a renowned puzzle author who goes by the name “Ludwig”, a nom de plume he adopted when first developing puzzles as a child while listening to Beethoven symphonies on vinyl records.
As the series opens, he is contacted by his identical twin brother’s wife Lucy, who has booked a taxi for him to take the 150-mile drive to come and see her, but refuses to tell him anything. John, we quickly learn, is not a sociable type, and dislikes leaving the house at the best of times; Lucy, having known him (and his brother) since childhood, knows very well that presenting him with incomplete information will drive him nuts enough to actually leave his house and discover what mystery awaits his solution.
Turns out that Lucy’s husband, John’s brother James, has gone missing. He left behind a curious note basically telling his family to flee as quickly as possible; Lucy, being a headstrong type, refuses to do this and instead recruits John to pose as James — they are identical twins, remember — in an attempt to discover the truth of what happened to him. The only slight snag in this? James was a detective working at the local constabulary, meaning John must sneak into an environment he has no professional knowledge of and attempt to find some information from under the noses of people that, presumably, James knows quite well.
Matters are further complicated where, upon John’s arrival at the police station, he is almost immediately dragged off to go and look at a crime scene. Caught in a situation where he is simply not able to refuse his partner, he ends up attending the scene of a murder and is completely out of his depth. After briefly fleeing the scene on the pretence of “getting some air”, he realises that the case is nothing but a logic puzzle; putting on his “puzzling” hat, he then proceeds to solve it in the same manner he would solve one of those old logic puzzles from the books with the guy in his pyjamas on the front.
His unorthodox methods net him a suspect and a confession, though his colleagues and superiors note that had the confession not been forthcoming, the complete lack of evidence would have made the case impossible to prosecute.
What then follows is John continuing to pose as his brother, working on several cases while attempting to ascertain the truth of what happened to his brother. It gradually becomes apparent that his brother left a trail of puzzle-like “breadcrumbs” to follow, leading John to believe that his disappearance was not accidental or circumstantial; it was planned out in advance. And cracking a cipher James left behind in his notebooks is going to be key to getting to the bottom of the case.
So far I’ve watched two episodes of the series with Andie and we’ve both enjoyed it a lot. Mitchell is, of course, playing a variation on the bumbling, socially awkward character he always plays, but it works well in the context. The positioning of an obviously autistic character in a professional role he is absolutely not comfortable with (or trained for) is, at times, borderline farcical, but suspension of disbelief allows you to simply enjoy the spectacle of what unfolds. They mysteries presented are intriguing and keep you guessing, and John’s tendency to follow through on his “hunches” keeps things interesting and pacy.
The music throughout each episode is absolutely excellent, too; perhaps predictably for a show called Ludwig, it’s all based on themes by Beethoven. Rather than just using the themes straight, however, they are all interesting rearrangements, with variations on Für Elise making up the majority of the soundtrack and the show’s main theme.
Genre critics might argue that each individual episode maybe wraps itself up a little too neat and tidily to be truly plausible — in both the episodes so far, the case being solved was dependent on one of the suspects “cracking” under the pressure of John’s logical deductions — but honestly? I don’t care. For the most part, I don’t engage with any form of fiction, regardless of medium, to ponder its realism; I engage with it to be entertained and to get to know interesting characters. And Ludwig certainly provides both in spades. It’s good, old-fashioned, entertaining television that strikes an excellent balance between drama and moments of levity, as one has surely come to expect from anything with Mitchell involved at this point.
It’s a short series — just six hour-long episodes — so I’m looking forward to seeing where things go. I’m definitely glad I started watching it, and if you enjoy a good mystery, I’d recommend you give it a look, too.
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