David Mitchell Talks Mysteries, Cryptic Crosswords & 'Ludwig'

We haven’t even reached the Spring Equinox yet, and David Mitchell is already having a great 2025, with one brand-new murder mystery series set to debut as he’s shooting episodes for another new series, an as-yet-untitled sketch comedy show with his longtime collaborator Robert Webb. Ludwig will arrive first, debuting on BritBox on Thursday, March 20, 2025, with its first season of cozy/sad/sprightly/faintly noir murders set in Cambridge; the series was such a success in the U.K. that it’s already been renewed for a second season.

Mitchell’s Ludwig character, John Taylor, finds himself literally and metaphorically miles outside his comfort zone. The socially reluctant word-and-logic puzzle creator is dragooned into leaving home at the urgent behest of his sister-in-law, Lucy (Anna Maxwell Martin). She’s gone so far as to send a car to ferry him the 150 miles or so to Cambridge, where he learns that his identical twin brother James has disappeared, with no explanation and for seemingly no reason. Although he’d much rather be at home, hewing to his beloved schedule of puzzle development and Sunday night cooking, he can’t ignore Lucy’s distress. He agrees to impersonate James at work to gather more information about where he may have gone and why.

Things escalate quickly, as they will in a murder mystery strongly influenced by comedies of errors. Impersonating James at work doesn’t just entail the standard imitation of his habits or sifting through the files on his desktop because while James does have an office, he is also a homicide detective. John finds that the skills he relies on for creating his devilishly complex puzzles apply very well to solving murders, which is excellent for his department’s case clearance rate, if not quite as promising for his and Lucy’s continuing quest to figure out where James is and why.