'Ludwig' Season 1 Uncovers a Debut Date on BritBox

David Mitchell’s latest project, Ludwig, is a genre mashup series that technically falls under the category of a police procedural but is more a little bit of everything, considering that the lead is a well-known comedian. Referred to by the BBC as a “case-of-the-week mystery-crime-comedy-drama,” the series’ first season was one of the BBC’s biggest debut hits for 2024, landing a second season commission and an American distributor at the newly revitalized BritBox. With a Season 1 release date set for the U.S. in March 2025, the series is one of BritBox’s primary titles for the first half of the year. 

Landing the lead detective role in a British cozy crime series is the moral equivalent of an American TV actor getting cast as a Marvel superhero; it’s an opportunity to create a career-defining legacy and immediately pushes the actor involved directly up the A-List food chain, as many U.K. cozy crime shows are scooped up by various American distributors, allowing the actor to become a household name in the U.S. as well as the U.K. Unsurprisingly, many U.K. actors jump at such roles, both dramatic actors and comedic ones. However, the latter usually have to play against type, which doesn’t always work for them. 

One of those whose comedic stylings aren’t the kind that would work in the standard police drama is David Mitchell of That Mitchell & Webb Show fame. Mitchell managed a low-key cult following after the comedy series aired on BBC America, but since then, his shows haven’t managed to land in the U.S., so it’s not a surprise he wanted to find a police procedural that fit his unique style to help cement his popularity, or that series creator Mark Brotherhood (The Trouble with Maggie Cole) created the role of Ludwig for Mitchell after learning he was looking for one.

Here’s the synopsis BritBox provided for Season 1:

Puzzle setter John ‘Ludwig’ Taylor sees his life of solitude turned upside down when his identical twin brother, James, disappears without a trace. In a quest to track James down and bring him home, Ludwig assumes his brother’s identity - but by taking over every aspect of James’s life, Ludwig is forced to confront his own issues. Unlike Ludwig, James is no hermit. Far from it, in fact. He’s a family man who is also the DCI of a busy inner-city major crimes team. For Ludwig, these are big shoes to fill, and playing dad to a ready-made family is as challenging as tackling the grisliest of crime scenes. But Ludwig has one big advantage: his ability to see the world in puzzle form. Can this master of all things cryptic crack his biggest puzzle yet? 

Mitchell is joined by Anna Maxwell Martin (Line of Duty), Dorothy Atkinson (The Gold), Dipo Ola (We Hunt Together), Gerran Howell (Suspicion), Izuka Hoyle (Boiling Point), Ralph Ineson (The Jetty), Sophie Willan (Time), and Dylan Hughes (Maternal). Season 1 guest stars include Derek Jacobi (I Claudius), Felicity Kendal (Doctor Who), Rose Ayling-Ellis (Code of Silence), Karl Pilkington (Rain Dogs), Paul Chahidi (The Serpent Queen), Hammed Animashaun (Black Ops), and Allan Mustafa (People Just Do Nothing).

Brotherhood penned all episodes; directors Robert McKillop (Guilt) and Jill Robertson (Dalgliesh) split helming duties across the show’s six installments, with Georgie Fallon producing. Brotherhood and Mitchell executive produce with Kenton Allen, Saurabh Kakkar, Kathryn O’Connor, and Chris Sussman. 

Ludwig Season 1 will premiere on BritBox with two episodes on Thursday, March 20, 2025, and continue with one episode weekly on Thursdays through the end of April. Season 2 is in pre-production and is expected to be released in the U.K. in late 2025 and following on BritBox in 2026.