Boxing Clever: Ludwig
Every week, Michael Telfer – aka Mike TV – recommends a box set to crack open. This week’s choice is cosy but clever whodunnit on the BBC iPlayer.
Pop quiz: What do Jeremy Irons, Christian Bale, Lindsay Lohan, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Michael B. Jordan and David Mitchell have in common?
That’s right, they’ve all shown themselves to be acting virtuosos by playing identical twins on screen.
And for me, until De Niro or Pacino ever simultaneously play a Hong Kong gangster and Parisian martial arts instructor in the same film as JCVD did in Double Impact, they’ll be B-list at best.
In Ludwig David Mitchell plays twin brothers John and James Taylor. When successful and popular Detective Chief Inspector James goes missing in the middle of a case, it falls to John, a reclusive puzzle maker who writes under the pen name Ludwig, to reluctantly step into James’ shoes and find out what has become of his brother.
The ruse is the brainchild of James’ anxious wife Lucy (Anna Maxwell Martin), who bullies John into moving in with her and James’ son Henry and going into the police station to have a root around in the missing DCI’s PC and files.
What they don’t reckon with is that every time John trundles along to work somebody gets murdered in mysterious circumstances, and obviously it falls to him to find out how and by whom.
As you may have guessed, Ludwig’s problem-solving skills make him unconventionally adept at solving murders, even if his methods baffle his partner Carter (Dipo Ola) and young investigators DS Finch (Izuka Hoyle) and DC Evans (Gerran Howell).
In between using logic puzzles to land killers, John wrestles with the wider mystery of his brothers disappearance and how the mysterious Chief Constable Ziegler (Ralph Ineson) may or may not be involved.
As with many crime series there are also a host of guest appearances to enjoy, including Karl Pilkington, Felicity Kendal, Rose Ayling-Ellis and Derek Jacobi as one of John’s old teachers.
Ludwig doesn’t pretend to be anything more than a cosy but very well written, performed and produced drama comedy whodunnit, and an excellent vessel for David Mitchell’s talents.
Season 2 is scheduled to arrive on the BBC iPlayer later this summer, which is just as well as the first season ends with more loose ends than my last attempt at a cryptic crossword.