IImagine Mark Corrigan from Peep Show growing up, abandoning Jez and Croydon to become a puzzle setter living a quiet life. Not too hard, right? But that wouldn't make for a very interesting show, so let's give him a twin brother who's a police detective who goes missing while undercover investigating a case that he doesn't tell his wife about. Got it?
That's the premise of Ludwig, in which David Mitchell plays an older Mark-like character named John, whose estranged sister-in-law Lucy (Anna Maxwell Martin) calls him out of the blue and asks him to come over to her house. There's a taxi waiting outside, the spare bed is made and has three pillows, and Lucy is making whatever pasta she has in store for John when he arrives. As with any time Mark (now John) is in the film, I, and I probably speak for the other pedantic fellows here, felt very much in the spotlight.
Reluctantly, he goes. Even more reluctantly, he agrees to her plan: to infiltrate the police station posing as her husband (his twin, James) and try to find clues as to what he was working on and what happened to him. For Mitchell, a master of social angst, this is as painful a turn of events as you could want. Inevitably, he gets caught up in a murder case that James' team is working on, and solves it alone, thanks to his talent for puzzles and rigorous logical thinking. Peep Show meets Monk. And that tells you everything, except for the fact that the name Ludwig is the pseudonym of John's crossword puzzle creator, which he adopted because he was listening to Beethoven when he created his first crossword puzzle. Now, on with it.
From here on, each week's case tests John's different puzzle-solving skills, deepening the mystery of James' disappearance and bringing him and Lucy closer together in their search for answers – including why the twins' father abandoned their family at such a young age.
It's a very gentle six-episode production. There's a ton of exposition for plot points and twists: people pointing at documents during close-ups, scrutinizing names on office doors, lining up timelines as if the viewer is acquainted with clocks for the first time. But its familiarity allows for the enormous suspension of disbelief necessary to make it work. Mitchell doesn't have to play anyone other than John/Mark. Lucy puts James in his jacket and takes John's pen from his pocket, but the characterization effort ends there. Mitchell is no Alec Guinness, and John would be as hard to fool James's coworker as a stuffed rabbit would be. The idea would be outrageous if we could make ourselves care.
A secret notebook is recovered, the menacing police chief (played by Ralph Ineson, most recently playing the fearsome district attorney in The Jetty) emerges as the bad guy, James's investigative partner goes missing, and it's not at all clear whether the new guy, Russell (Dipo Ola from The Landscapers), can be trusted. But the only real tension comes from John's suffering: modern society doesn't suit him at all, much less his constant interactions with coworkers and the public. “Buildings, offices, computers! Everyone talking at the same time, moving around without structure or purpose!” says John after his first day, with Mitchell's trademark bemused exasperation. On top of that, John also has to deal with glimpses into his brother's happy home life that was previously out of reach.
Mitchell continues to excel in the role he was born to play. And I mean that as a compliment, not as a put-down; if he keeps doing what he does well, no one will complain. Maxwell Martin, on the other hand, handles a relatively simple role with ease; her ability to imbue it with nuance and warmth raises a lot of doubts. The supporting cast does the best they can with the little they're given (however modest this is Mitchell's show), so every viewer will leave feeling like they've been well rewarded for an hour of their time. After all, anything more than that would leave us fans like Mark more perplexed than pleased.
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