Has there ever been a better time to be a hermit? Yes, the world is going to hell in every which way, but I’m not talking about that, or inferring that such people are hiding specifically from the chaos of now. Hermits retreat from society regardless of political bellwethers.
No, what I’m mainly talking about is the expansion of delivery. Whatever we need can be dropped on our doorsteps, eliminating nearly any requirements to leave the house — which answers the question of how David Mitchell’s John Taylor, the reluctant detective at the center of “Ludwig,” came to be so insulated from the world.
John leads a quiet life of the mind, spending his days designing puzzles under the pen name Ludwig. Walled in by stacks of books, papers and drawing boards, he orders his days as he sees fit. He doesn’t look lonely, but unbothered. Recognizing the difference between the two conditions helps us to appreciate what John’s sister-in-law Lucy Betts-Taylor (Anna Maxwell Martin) requires of him.
When Lucy calls John out of the blue — which, through the lens of someone who is not a hermit, could be taken as an unexpected interruption instead of an irritant — his reaction to what comes next is indisputable fright. Lucy is calling to ask a “pretty big” favor of John. “It’s going to involve you having to leave the house and get into the taxi I have booked for you,” she explains.
Anna Maxwell Martin as Lucy Betts-Taylor in “Ludwig” (Courtesy of BBC/Big Talk Studios)If you’re like me, you understand what an imposition this is. Leaving the house these days is an activity I’d equate to going to the gym or some out-of-the-way store – I don’t want to do it, but I tend to feel better for having overcome my inertia.
John, however, can’t count on that. In fact, he’s sure whatever is waiting at the end of his 140-mile trip between his little cave and the Cambridge home Lucy shares with her husband, John’s identical twin James, won’t be pleasant. And he never would have embarked on it if Lucy hadn’t ordered a vehicle to show up at his door.
Mitchell is both extraordinarily entertaining and moving in his performance of true introversion, a personality type that’s only recently become more commonly understood.
“Ludwig,” created and written by Mark Brotherhood, is a six-episode cozy mystery in which each episode’s one-off cases are the fancy dress to a serialized mystery connecting the season. James, a respected detective, is missing. He left an envelope for Lucy containing a note imploring her to pack up everything and disappear along with their teenage son.
But Lucy has known James and John since they were around six years old. She suspects there’s something else going on, so she asks John to impersonate James to enter the station, find his journal and bring it back to her.
However, she underestimates the number of puzzles surrounding us. Parking is a puzzle that John, who doesn’t know how to drive, fails spectacularly. Talking to strangers is another puzzle. Throwing in expectations related to titles and other formalities that are part of James’ job is enough to turn John into a frightened ostrich desperate to find a soft ground to bury his head in.
Then the worst happens – John is spotted by James’ new partner DI Russell Carter (Dipo Ola) and reeled into a homicide case. If contending with the living is challenging for John, imagine his reaction to viewing his first dead body.
“I can’t do this, Lucy. I don’t know how anybody can. I don’t know how James ever did!” he blurts in a resulting moment of crisis.
John ‘Ludwig’ Taylor (David Mitchell) and DI Russell Carter (Dipo Ola) in “Ludwig” (Courtesy of BBC/Big Talk Studios)When Lucy mistakes John’s meaning and thinks he’s talking about James’ work, John corrects her. “I’m not talking about his job, I’m talking about all of it!” he says. “I’m talking about just getting up in the morning and leaving the house. Coming out here to – this! All this! Crowds and noise and buildings and offices and computers, and people! Nobody seeing each other, everybody talking at once!”
“Ludwig” is already a hit in the U.K., land of the upbeat whodunit, and its second season pickup can’t have been a surprise. It’s an entertaining, mordantly funny show that’s also softhearted despite all the killings. Mitchell and Maxwell Martin have tremendous chemistry, as do Mitchell and Ola. The whole cast clicks.
“Ludwig” is an even-keeled exploration of empathy through the eyes of someone who experienced common childhood tragedies of bullying and parental abandonment and chose to retreat from life instead of trudging forth.
As for American viewers, we’ve already fallen for quirky citizen detectives in the mold of the trio from “Only Murders in the Building,” Carrie Preston’s upbeat crime solver on “Elsbeth” and Kathy Bates’ wry take on “Matlock.”
“Ludwig” tosses in the additional coloring of a classical music-inspired soundtrack driven by Beethoven’s famous symphonies. Whether the songs are presented in their orchestral splendor or as frenetic electronica, each needle drop leavens the natural comedy of John’s frantic awkwardness or captures his chronic sorrow.
That facet is what peels the show apart from those other top shows. Mitchell, best known for his work on “Peep Show,” is both extraordinarily entertaining and moving in his performance of true introversion, a personality type that’s only recently become more commonly understood. Brotherhood further hones that portrayal by writing John as a man making the same uneasy bargain to reengage with strangers as the rest of us.
John isn’t obligated to do James’ job while investigating his disappearance, he chooses to. Decoding mysteries is his driving compulsion, and if decoding the enigma of human interaction is part of that – something solo living never requires him to practice – so be it.
In the first episode, when he cracks a murder case by distilling it into a logic puzzle, he batters his audience into submission with an avalanche of nerdy terms. “OK, so what we’re looking at here is a concatenation of syllogisms, obviously,” he says, “A series of statements and propositions, one of which will be false, but which we can weed out via a process of cross-reference and deductive reason.”
He confidently illustrates what he’s deduced by drawing a grid on a whiteboard and yammering as his suspects and colleagues watch, slack-jawed. “Do you follow?” he asks, as if we should, but of course, we don’t. Yet this doesn’t cow John. It makes him more confident and curious to see where his expertise can take him.
DS Alice Finch (Izuka Hoyle), DI Russell Carter (Dipo Ola), John ‘Ludwig’ Taylor (David Mitchell), DCS Carol Shaw (Dorothy Atkinson) and DC Simon Evans (Gerran Howell) in “Ludwig” (Courtesy of BBC/Big Talk Studios)Often, his blind stumbling through suspect interviews or taking witness statements can be very funny. But his stunted talent for small talk can be very affecting in turns that, say, require him to deliver news to a weeping stranger, confirming their worst fear has come to pass.
“Ludwig” is an even-keeled exploration of empathy through the eyes of someone who experienced common childhood tragedies of bullying and parental abandonment and chose to retreat from life instead of trudging forth as his twin did. Many of us can identify with his outlook in this era of renegotiating what it means to be with other people.
Previous generations didn’t have the chance to taste some version of the hermetic bliss millions of us were exposed to over the past five years. They had to show up to their jobs and community spaces. But for millions of us, virtual innovation has made it possible, even preferable, to pass the days connecting to objects, knowledge and even other people without sharing physical space with another soul.
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Once restrictions on public gatherings eased, the world’s reopening brought to the fore how socially feral we’d become. Suddenly, restaurant patrons and drivers forgot their patience and manners. Tempers were and are noticeably shorter. That savagery had already reared up in social media spaces before the pandemic fertilized it, but knowing it was already present doesn’t lessen the shock of experiencing versions of it in face-to-face interactions.
Mitchell’s John contends with that loudness and insistent inhumanity without having previous exposure to it online or on his mobile phone, which is the same Nokia Lucy gifted him 20 years ago.
Living in this reality with him makes John’s emotional journey as profound as the mysteries are satisfying. John’s halting efforts to march his ungainliness into a chaotic world mimic those of anyone who grew accustomed to ordered solitude or preferred it in the first place.
This show provides a peek at what could be waiting for us on the other side of our discomfort with being in public – an answer key, if you will, widening our view of what’s possible. Maybe that picture includes people whose company is worth having. We’ll never know unless we’re bold enough to step out of our safety zone.
New episodes of “Ludwig” premiere Thursdays through April 17 on BritBox.
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