Ludwig – David Mitchell, Anna Maxwell Martin, and creatives open up about the comedy-drama: “it’s a bit of a dream for me”

When John ‘Ludwig’ Taylor’s (David Mitchell) identical twin, James, disappears off the face of the earth, John takes over his brother’s identity in a quest to discover his whereabouts. John has never married, never had a family and never really ventured further than his own front door. Without a computer, mobile phone or even a television, he lives in quiet solitude, designing puzzles for a living, under the nom-de-plume of ‘Ludwig’.

However, filling the shoes of your identical twin is one thing – when your twin also happens to be a successful DCI leading Cambridge’s busy inner-city major crimes team the stakes are much higher. John may be a master of all things cryptic, but can he crack the biggest puzzle of his life?

Joining David Mitchell in the ‘case-of-the-week’ crime comedy-drama is Anna Maxwell Martin (Motherland, Line of Duty), as Lucy Betts-Taylor, John’s sister-in-law and wife of his missing brother James.

Also joining the cast are Dipo Ola (Landscapers, We Hunt Together), Gerran Howell (Catch-22, Suspicion), Izuka Hoyle (Boiling Point, Big Boys), Dylan Hughes (Malory Towers, Maternal), and Dorothy Atkinson (Mum, The Gold).

Ludwig (6×60) is a Big Talk Studios in association with That Mitchell And Webb Company production for BBC One and BBC iPlayer. It was commissioned by Jon Petrie, Director of Comedy Commissioning at the BBC. The series is written and created by Mark Brotherhood. The Executive Producers are Kenton Allen, Mark Brotherhood, Saurabh Kakkar, David Mitchell, Kathryn O’Connor and Chris Sussman, the Producer is Georgie Fallon. The Directors are Robert McKillop and Jill Robertson. The BBC Commissioning Editor is Tanya Qureshi. It is produced in association with ITV Studios, which will distribute the series internationally.

• Watch Ludwig on BBC iPlayer from Wednesday 25 September, with weekly episodes from 9pm on BBC One.

HM2

Interview with David Mitchell

John ‘Ludwig’ Taylor

How did Ludwig first come to you as a project?

The idea was pitched to me quite a while ago. I love TV detective shows. It’s one of the types of programme I find most enjoyable and comforting to watch. I grew up loving Miss Marple and Inspector Morse and Poirot so it’s a bit of a dream for me to be in one.

What appealed to you about the premise of Mark Brotherhood’s script?

It struck me that this was a really fun, funny and different idea. The comedy of a fish out of water but a fish out of water who, if I am going to stretch this metaphor, can nevertheless walk around relatively effectively because of what his previous job in the water was. That’s a great situation. Also, I like the fact that you get some sort of resolution with Ludwig in one sitting. A lot more television programmes these days are serials. You have to keep watching to kind of get anything. In Ludwig there are rewards for keeping watching every week but equally there is a story in each episode that is resolved, hopefully in a pleasing and intriguing way.

Is this as much a story about families and missed opportunities as it is about murders and puzzle solving?

I think fundamentally it’s about the murders and the puzzle solving. I think that’s what is so escapist and satisfying about this genre, the light meringue of a pleasing plot. Another thing that I like about it is that it’s not gritty. It is cosy murder of the old school. So even though the crime at the centre would be an absolute abomination if it happened in real life, we all benefit from the murder-mystery convention – if you like, the Agatha Christie tradition – so we don’t dwell on what murder really is, on the horrific nature of the crime. We focus on the context and the mystery and the play of human emotions that leads to it. I have been slightly disappointed, I suppose, by the recent trend of a lot of programmes to really embrace the horror and emphasize the realities of loss and fear that crime causes. That’s not what I’m in it for as a viewer and I don’t think I am alone in that. In Ludwig we don’t dwell on the fact that it’s murder any more than in a game of Cluedo you’d start thinking, ‘But how awful for Doctor Black’s family. He must be so missed.’

Have you always been good at guessing whodunnit in TV murder mysteries?

The truth is I don’t try to guess. I want to be delighted by the denouement. If you have a hard think and you pick someone, you are either going to be wrong – so then you feel like you have been outwitted or that you weren’t given the full information – or you feel like you have robbed yourself of the reveal. For me, the proof of the pudding is in whether the way the murderer turns out to be whoever it turns out to be is an entertaining revelation. But I know other people like to try and solve it themselves and have little bets and that is an equally valid way of enjoying it.

What sort of man is John ‘Ludwig’ Taylor?

He is a man who has quite a small life. He had a childhood that was massively upset by the disappearance of his and his brother’s father, and John and James for all their similarities have reacted very differently to that. One has headed out into the world, and one has gone into himself a bit.

John has been facilitated in turning in on himself by the fact that he has this great brain for setting puzzles, so he has been able to make a very successful career without much leaving of the house involved. Broadly speaking he has not aspired to much. He has not taken risks. He has not forged relationships. He has just allowed his brain to comfort him with the setting and the solving of puzzles. He is not a hugely abnormal person. He’s intelligent but he has normal and relatable emotions. There’s a sadness in him that he hasn’t lived his life to the full and I suppose that is why when a very old friend, his brother’s wife (Lucy, played by Anna Maxwell Martin), comes to him saying, ‘You really have to help us’ he has somewhere got it in him to do that and leave his very, very small, over-heated comfort-zone.

Does John remind you of yourself in your bachelor days?

I’m quite a nervous person, a worrier. At the same time, I am a professional comedian. So ultimately, I did embark upon a high-risk and unusual profession. Much as I can share the feelings of people like him who don’t want to take risks in their lives and don’t want new experiences, that’s not what I’ve lived. I don’t like extreme sports. I’ve never been skiing. I can’t drive a car. But I will stand on a stage in front of lots of people through choice because ultimately, there is something in me that needs that more than it needs low risks and safety.

How does John get on with his sister-in-law Lucy?

He finds it difficult to express and deal with warmth within friendships. He is very shy about that, but he also likes what he is used to, and he has known her since they were very young children. I think even though he can’t express it, they are very close and she matters very much to him. She is probably his closest friend even though he hardly ever sees her. Broadly speaking she’s the person he is most comfortable working closely with. But that’s not saying much.

What have you enjoyed about your onscreen partnership with Anna Maxwell Martin?

She’s brilliant. I was a big fan of Motherland and I thought she was chilling in Line of Duty. She has a quality of humour and moral ambiguity in her performances that is incredibly watchable. I was delighted when she agreed to do this show because I think she gives a huge slab of acting class to the whole thing. If I can say that. I now feel like I’ve called her a huge slab, which I didn’t mean to do.

John still owns a Nokia mobile phone that Lucy gave him 20 years ago. How are you with tech?

I would say that the advent of the internet and the smart phone has been an unequivocally bad thing for humanity. I think it’s bad for our mental state. It’s bad for our calmness. It’s just bad. I don’t think that’s because there’s been some grand conspiracy to destroy humanity’s peace of mind. It just happened. That’s the way humans are. We invent things. Technology marches on. Sometimes we invent brilliant things like antibiotics. Sometimes we invent nuclear bombs. I’m afraid I would put the internet in the nuclear bomb camp, not the penicillin camp.

There is a missing conspiracy theorist at the heart of this series. Are there any conspiracy theories that you think are valid?

What I find odd about conspiracy theories is that the people who go in for them invariably like to think of themselves as questioning people because they’ve questioned the ostensible explanation for things that has been presented to them – which is obviously an admirable thing to do – but the trouble is they have questioned explanation number one and then they have taken wacky explanation number two without any questions at all. I also find it odd that most conspiracy theorists don’t just go in for one conspiracy theory – flat earth or 5G masts cause Covid or Elvis is alive – most of them believe the lot. Why’s that? Just because you reckon the royal family are lizards, why would it follow that you think the planet isn’t a sphere? I think it’s because going in for a conspiracy theory is a sort of hobby, a state of mind that people enjoy getting into. A bit like watching murder mysteries on television. Unfortunately, with slightly more collateral damage to our society.

What memories were stirred for you returning to Cambridge to film this series?

I had a very happy time at university. It’s a beautiful city and it is lovely to visit. It is always slightly bittersweet because it reminds me that I will never be 21 again. Happy memories of my time there are tinged with regret laced with an awareness of mortality. As we all feel. Happy memories aren’t just happy, are they? But I also love the fact that it is set in Cambridge. I grew up in Oxford and growing up watching Inspector Morse it felt very special to know the city a bit. Oxford or Cambridge is a very good context for a programme like this because, in the picturesque and historical surroundings, you can allude to both sides of what the programme needs to be: the attractive, escapist side, but also a sense of darkness and oldness and the fact that humanity is flawed and twisted.

In episode five John is concerned that his inspirational teacher from his schooldays, Mr Todd, might be losing his faculties. What do you worry most about?

I’m a parent so I think the thing I worry about most is anything bad happening to my children. That is currently my greatest fear. Whenever anything goes wrong that isn’t that, that’s the thought that I console myself with. I may come to worry about the loss of my own mental faculties but that’s not the most immediate fear. Keep my children in the world so when I do lose my marbles it’s their problem!

We are told John once found a four-leaf clover but didn’t keep it. Are you superstitious about anything?

I’m afraid I am inclined to habits and worries. I find myself checking that the back door is locked more times than is justifiable. When it has got into my head that something is unlucky, I can’t quite shake it. I don’t like recurring numbers. In cricket there is a thing that if you are on 111 or any multiple of that, it is supposed to be bad luck. I used to watch quite a lot of cricket so that got into my head and now, if I am reading a book, I won’t leave the bookmark in on page 111. I should, because it is a nonsense not to, but I don’t. My wife told me that it is bad luck to put new shoes on a table or a bed. Now, if I am ever going on holiday and I am taking new shoes, I pack the suitcase on the floor. So yes, I do accommodate these mad little ideas as part of trying to achieve peace of mind, I suppose. But it is obviously ridiculous.

What’s next for you after Ludwig. Have you any plans to work with Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain again?

I would love to work with Jesse and Sam but there are no plans in the pipeline. Sam lives in LA, so I only see him every so often when he comes to visit. Jesse, having been in America for a long time with Succession, is now back here and I am seeing him a bit more often and that’s lovely. My future work plans are that we are doing another series of Would I Lie To You?

Interview with Anna Maxwell Martin

Lucy Betts-Taylor

Would you describe Ludwig as a series about solving murders or solving relationships?

Both, I think the heart of the show is Lucy and John’s relationship, with sleuthing as an accidental bonus.

How would you describe Lucy and John’s relationship?

Lucy and John are light and shade. Their relationship is very sweet and nuanced, written really well by Mark Brotherhood. Lucy is completely understanding and accepting of John, their care for each other is unconditional.

What do you admire about Lucy?

What I like about her is that she is indomitable. She is always positive, like a puppy, despite what has happened to her. John is the Eeyore of the piece.

What particularly appealed to you about working with David Mitchell?

I suspected he was a good egg. I didn’t know for sure. He might have turned out to be a bad egg, but it transpires that he is 100% good egg. David is great, we had a really nice time.

How good are you at solving TV murder mysteries?

My mum and I love them. Our favourites are Silent Witness, Vera, McDonald and Dodds. Mother and I really like a murder mystery to be wrapped up in one episode, which is the case with Ludwig. I’m a bit of an instant gratification person.

The script describes Lucy as someone who never does as she’s told. How about you?

In my job I have to do what I’m told. If actors didn’t do what they were told we would never make our day. We would be constantly behind.

John once gave Lucy a four-leaf clover as a keepsake. Would you do anything like that?

No, I don’t hold onto anything. I am constantly down the tip. That four-leaf clover would have been straight in the tip.

What’s your favourite way of passing the time between set-ups?

Eating biscuits and nattering.

How would you describe Lucy’s look?

I’ve tried to get some quirky stuff in. I wanted some weird applique jumpers and stuff like that. I just wanted her to be a little bit off. I think we’ve achieved that.

You’ve worked with the Ludwig hair and makeup team on other shows like Motherland. What makes them so good?

I first worked with Nessa White and Lesley Altringham 11 years ago on Alpha Papa, the Alan Partridge film. Then we went all the way through on Motherland. Nessa is the head honcho, she is amazing and very clever. She has helped me a lot on other projects where there has been no budget. I’ve known Nessa for years, but Lesley is my support dog. Actually, I am more of Lesley’s support dog. The makeup truck is the heart of the show without a doubt. You have got to have a jolly, positive team and we definitely did on this.

David has all the lengthy crime solving speeches in Ludwig. Do you miss the marathon ones you had as DCI Patricia Carmichael in Line of Duty?

I do, and I would do it all again in a heartbeat. There is no greater gift for an actor than being given a part like that. I had worked with Vicky McClure before on a film called Mother’s Day. I told her I loved Line of Duty so much that I would be happy to make the tea in the background. When I was told Jed was offering me a part, I thought that’s what it was, making tea. It wasn’t. I love Patricia as a character. Jed Mercurio was brilliant to work with – creative but also hands-off – and Sue Tully who directed those episodes was exceptional. She knows what she wants, and you have such confidence in her. They just let me really go for it.

On Motherland there was an opportunity to improvise. Is that the case on Ludwig?

I do change the odd bit in Ludwig but not hugely. That’s only because things change when you get there and as you develop the character. There are some parts where you feel so lucky to have been afforded the opportunity and Motherland is one. I will always be grateful to Graham Linehan and Sharon Horgan for taking a chance on me when I hadn’t done any comedy before. Sharon is a powerhouse. She is an inspirational woman in the business.

Do we get to see Lucy doing any amateur sleuthing?

She does sleuth. She wanders off on her own and goes rogue.

Do you enjoy a puzzle?

I do a puzzle every morning.

If there is the opportunity, what would you like to see more of Lucy doing in future Ludwig mysteries?

I would get her out of the house and doing more sleuthing. This season we’re telling the story of Lucy being a bit green around the gills. If there was a series two I would get her out and into a bit of danger. I think she can do the danger more than John.

What other TV shows have you admired recently?

Kin on BBC iPlayer. That’s my current favourite programme. It is brilliantly conceived, brilliantly cast, brilliantly designed, created and directed. The actors are so super. I just love every single one of them. And then in the second season there is one of the best and most frightening baddies I think I have ever seen on TV. Francis Magee as Bren Kinsella. If I met him, I would be so overwhelmed. I had to phone my Irish friends to ask what he was like in real life. ‘Is he horrible?’ No, of course not, he is the sweetest man. It’s such a good show.

What makes Ludwig special?

There is a lot of heart in this show and David and I have a good relationship in it, so I am willing it on.

 Interview with Executive Producer Kenton Allen

How would you describe Ludwig as a series?

Ludwig is a classic crime drama with a unique twist. That unique twist being that the lead detective is not a detective, but his twin brother is.

Had Big Talk been looking for an original take on the murder-mystery genre?

Yes, we were looking for a way of doing a crime show because guess what? People like crime shows. But one with a Big Talk USP, tone and pedigree. We are always looking for something distinctive that has wit and irreverence as well as telling a cracking good crime story. The Outlaws with Stephen Merchant is a big indicator of the tone of Ludwig.

How did David Mitchell first become involved?

We work a lot with David Mitchell and Robert Webb. The first thing we did with their production company, That Mitchell & Webb Company, was a show called Back, written by Simon Blackwell. When we were making Back, I was having a cup of tea with David one afternoon on set and he confessed to me a secret desire to play a television detective, which obviously to a producer is manna from heaven.

What excited you about the prospect of David as a TV detective or at least the twin brother of one?

What is exciting about it is this is David’s first acting role that is stepping into the mainstream as a leading man in a one-hour prime-time crime dramedy. He has conquered sitcom with Peep Show and Back. He has conquered the panel show with Would I Lie To You?, which is such a staple of the BBC One schedule. To me, this is the natural progression for him like a lot of brilliant comedy actors who have played onscreen detectives. Be it Robbie Coltrane and Cracker, David Jason and A Touch of Frost or Alan Davies and Jonathan Creek. A big reference for this show was Columbo with Peter Falk and more recently Monk with Tony Shalhoub who again is both a great actor and a great comic actor. That’s the journey that we’re on with David. It’s the perfect show for him in terms of the character. It feels like the right actor at the right time with the right project.

What makes writer Mark Brotherhood a great fit for this project?

We had worked with Mark on Cold Feet, he had written some brilliant episodes. I mentioned it to him not knowing that he is an uber-crime drama fan. He loves them and has always wanted to write one. We had a chat and he said he would go away and have a think. He came back with this sort of doppelganger idea called Ludwig, which we loved, and David loved. Mark is a bit like a Northern version of David in many ways, how he views the world. He nailed David as Ludwig on the page. Mark’s sense of humour is very grounded, and a lot of his wit is observations about the modern world which many men and women of a certain age probably share.

What are the potential pitfalls in making a murder mystery series?

I think trying to be original is tricky, familiarity with originality. In a classic murder-of-the-week show you want the audience to be able to play along and try and work out whodunnit, but you don’t want to give it away. You have to be careful that you don’t cast your murderer very obviously. For me, it must be about something other than just the murder of the week. You want to have other stories going on as well. Those are either relationship stories or there is this other overarching mystery. In this show you’ve got both. You’ve got Ludwig rekindling his relationship with Lucy, his brother’s wife, who was his childhood sweetheart, and what does that mean? You’ve got him thrust into being a surrogate parent because there is Henry, a 15-year-old boy, who in the absence of his father needs parenting by Uncle Ludwig. And then you have got the mystery of where James has gone, which is what has brought Ludwig and Lucy back together.

In the BBC Comedy Mum there was great chemistry and a ‘will-they-won’t-they’ intrigue between Lesley Manville and Peter Mullan. Is there an element of that between David Mitchell and Anna Maxwell Martin’s characters?

Yes, it’s historical, isn’t it. But I don’t think we want to encourage him to commit adultery with his brother’s wife! I think that might lose audience sympathy. There is a deep friendship there and childhood crushes tend to carry on into life. In Ludwig’s mind Lucy is the ‘one that got away’ to his brother. There is a bit of longing there that David gives you even if it is a longing that cannot speak its name.

What unique qualities does Anna Maxwell Martin bring to Lucy?

She’s a brilliant actress and she brings a playfulness and a bounce, an unpredictability and a likability to Lucy that wasn’t necessarily on the page. Anna brings originality and there is a warmth to her as well. Lucy is sort of mothering Ludwig in many ways to get him to do what she wants, which any mother will know is difficult to do with a teenage boy or an adult man. Lucy is very cleverly manipulating Ludwig to go and do this insane thing, which is to impersonate his brother. Anna grounds the show and brings a degree of truth and honesty to it and makes the situation even more compelling.

What were you looking for in the casting of Lucy’s son/John’s nephew Henry played by Dylan Hughes?

He has an intelligent innocence. Henry is blissfully ignorant of the thing that his mother has kept away from him, which is that his father isn’t just away on a job. He has gone missing. As the series unfolds and Henry discovers the truth, he has quite a sophisticated part to play. You need an actor that can play the innocence but also has the intelligence to show you the emotional journey he is going on as he learns the truth. Dylan does that.

Dorothy Atkinson is playing a very different character to Pauline in Mum. What does she bring to DCS Carol Shaw?

You never really know where you are with Carol Shaw at the start of the series. Is she a goodie or a baddie? Dorothy brings a certain impenetrability, which hopefully the audience will enjoy. Which side of the line is she? Dorothy does that very well. Only time will tell whether she is part of the problem or part of the solution.

As with Back, Mum, Raised By Wolves and Friday Night Dinner, Ludwig is another Big Talk show about families. What makes that such a rich source for comedy and drama?

Families are endlessly fascinating. Most of us either have a family or something that resembles a family unit. Not everyone has got an identical twin brother, but I think you can understand the emotional stakes of being asked to do something by your sister-in-law. And you can understand what it is like to try to be a surrogate parent to your nephew. All those access points give you some relatability. Family is everything. Somebody says that in the show. All our shows don’t have to have families in them, but they do have to have some sense of a family unit, I think.

Didn’t you give director Robbie McKillop his big break on A Young Doctor’s Notebook?

I think that was his first job. He has gone on to a lot of other excellent things since then like Guilt. That was the show we watched that made us think Robbie would be very good at setting up this show and giving it a distinctive look and feel without throwing the baby out with the bath water.

What different energy does director Jill Robertson bring to the last three episodes?

Jill’s episodes are when the stakes get ratcheted up. We learn more about the mystery of James’ disappearance and various other quite serious things happen to the characters. Jill’s episodes are a bit more classic crime drama. We’ve still got Ludwig at the centre of them with his idiosyncratic take on the world, but Jill has got more serious s*** to deal with. Jill had worked before with our producer Georgie Fallon. She has done a lot of work that marries quite traditional drama with wit and playfulness. I particularly liked her work on Last Tango in Halifax. It’s not a crime drama but the character work in that is very good. She also launched Dalgliesh where again she did a very good job of delivering a very cool detective series. Jill just had a really good take on the material when we met her.

Can you pick an unsung hero on this production and tell us about their contribution to Ludwig?

Alan Connor is our puzzle consultant on the shows. When we are designing murders and trying to find puzzle connections to them Alan is our go-to man. He is an expert at locked room mysteries and all sorts of things like acrostic and syllogism. In a bizarre link to Robbie McKillop, he also worked on the Young Doctor’s Notebook.

Your early ambitions were to be a record producer. How important is music and score in a series like Ludwig?

It’s essential. Music is another part of the storytelling. That’s apparent in shows we referenced like The White Lotus or Only Murders in the Building. Even going back to Morse, you think about how iconic that score was. It’s essential in terms of setting tone and style and storytelling. And obviously the lead character is named after Ludwig van Beethoven. With all this is mind the search for a Composer led us to the brilliant Nathan Klein and Finn Keane who have created a highly original soundtrack that brilliantly combines motifs from the Beethoven repertoire with their own very contemporary approach to an orchestral soundtrack. I think the results are stunning and we defy anyone not to end up humming our title music after a couple of listens.

Interview with Writer Mark Brotherhood

What was your reaction when Kenton Allen mentioned to you that David Mitchell was keen to play a TV detective?

My reaction was ok, that’s brilliant as I’ve always been a big fan of detective shows. I could see David as Columbo. I’ve got to do this before somebody else does. It was very much like that.

And the twist is that he’s not actually playing a detective, but he becomes one when he impersonates his missing twin brother.

Yes, it’s what if an everyman was to find himself in a detective show? Ludwig is not actually a detective, but he must go about doing that job.

What do you love about what David has done with John ‘Ludwig’ Taylor?

He will move you. He is ever such a good actor, David Mitchell. He really is. I think probably more than a lot of people maybe give him credit for, given that it is mostly broad comedy and sketch shows. There is a pathos to this character, which he gets. You see this sort of sadness and loneliness behind John a lot of the time. He has this occasional level of childish excitement at some of the stuff that he is doing. He is lovely and nuanced, and David knows just how to hit those notes. He has lovely, expressive eyes when he’s sad. He’s wonderful.

Ludwig’s real job is as a world-famous puzzle setter. Why are puzzles so important to him?

He would like the whole world to be like that. Here’s a puzzle. If you solve it, order is restored. It is kind of something he has turned to as an escape since childhood in the same way that some of us, in my case it was probably books, people just lose themselves in something. Puzzles were always his safe space. It was a ‘this is how I can control the world’ type thing that children do, and it has just stayed with him. We all have our variants of that.

What were the murder mysteries that first gripped you as a viewer?

It was Columbo. I was probably about nine or ten when I first saw an episode. Those things stay with you. I just adored it. It was that sense of ‘here is an odd person who is going to make everything all right again’. It’s probably one of the best programmes ever made and Columbo is one of the best detective characters ever created. The kind of mental chess game he plays with his opponents, which I have tried to do a couple of times in Ludwig. We are different because Columbo was famously a ‘howdunnit’. We knew the killer in advance and just enjoyed his process. We do that maybe once in Ludwig but generally we are sticking to the ‘whodunnit’ format. It boils down to a character that is massively underestimated by their opponent because they are a bit odd. In Columbo’s case it was a little bit class based. Generally, he seemed absent-minded and yet he owned them in the end. It is so satisfying.

Why do you think murder mysteries make such popular family viewing?

It’s probably basic psychology, that. We look at ourselves. You are being presented with a wrongdoing, somebody attempting to get away with it and then somebody coming in and catching them. And each episode always ends with everything right in the world. My rule with television is always leave it feeling better than when you went into it, which is what these give us.

What were you hoping for in the casting of Lucy?

Yes, it’s a hard one. That character required a level of eccentricity that could match John whilst still being more grounded than John. It is quite sharp, pointed dialogue the way she talks to him, and I think in other hands that could create a completely different character. Anna Maxwell Martin does it with such playfulness. What she is really pulling from this is the 30-year relationship with this guy. They often talk in their own way, like they are still teenagers. They still have that level of banter between them. Anna just got it.

Is there a scene that sums up Lucy and John’s relationship?

She’s a mum and a wife but they are still almost like kids when they’re together. There’s a moment where he’s scribbled a phone number down on his arm and she’s trying to look at it. She twists his arm and while he’s ow-ow-owing she’s like, ‘Oh, it’s hardly the first armlock I’ve ever given you’ And he’s not, ‘what the hell are you doing?’ which most people would do. It’s comfortable. We get who they are, I think.

Do yourself and Ludwig share some similarities in your view of the world?

Yes, there is a little bit of a proxy for me. I am rather lost in the world usually, as is Ludwig. I guess I get it out through writing, and he gets it out through puzzles. It’s a very similar character to me.

Have you a twin sibling?

I haven’t, no. That’s unrelated to me. That was just a handy plot device.

Where did you spend your early childhood years?

Still where I am now, which is Darlington in the Northeast. A fair cry from Cambridge. I don’t think setting it in Darlington would be quite as effective, a nice Northern ex-railway town. We want somewhere like Cambridge with its seat of learning and its architecture. It kind of suits the character of John because it’s intellectually where he’s at but he still doesn’t even quite fit in there.

Are you pleased with how glorious the locations look onscreen?

Yes, I can’t sing the praises of directors Robbie McKillop and Jill Robertson enough. The locations look so cinematic. There is a great big church, a manor house and a public school, which has that old style of architecture. They look so amazing on screen. In the episode concerning the murder of a tour guide we really get to see the scenery of Cambridge. It’s just lush and gorgeous. It looks so stunning, all this stuff. People are going to love it.

What sort of puzzles does Ludwig have to solve to crack the murder mysteries he has inadvertently been presented with?

Episode one is a logic puzzle, which involves a grid thing. I’ve always loved them. And books which are both a story and a puzzle have always been my favourite. We have a chess puzzle, which Ludwig recreates. We have a Spot the Difference puzzle, which is the most basic puzzle imaginable, but he can’t seem to solve it. There are lots of different ones.

Which of the murder mysteries was the most challenging to write?

The chess one. That was one of the more ambitious ones. He wants to relay everything that happened on a building site to a chess board with all the suspects as characters and then demonstrate how they could have moved about. That was one where it was inconvenient for me that I don’t actually have his brain. I had to sit down and really bloody think about it!

What discussions were there about the tone of the show?

I think everybody was on board with the idea that we were doing a sleuth show as opposed to a detective show. And we are aiming it at families. I have certainly written it to be pre-watershed. It’s a show with a murder every week but we are not forensic, we are not in the morgue and there’s no violence. It’s tonally that. Moonlighting-wise we want to have the will-they-won’t-they without spelling it out. Everything has to be quite light and frothy even with the murders.

What do you hope viewers enjoy most about this series?

Him and her. I hope everybody also enjoys all the stories and the murders and we have some lovely, fun secondary characters. But I really want people to love John and Lucy and root for them. It is probably as basic as that.

Have you already written more puzzles for Ludwig to solve?

I do have more puzzles for him to solve. We are already thinking well ahead on this one. But the big mystery of this series is what has happened to John’s brother James? Why has he vanished? That is what John and Lucy are trying to solve. James is an invisible Godot-like figure that looms over John and Lucy and Henry all the time. We are not done yet…

Interview with Director Robert McKillop

Director, Episodes 1-3

You worked with Big Talk before on A Young Doctor’s Notebook. Was that your first big break as a director?

It was my first proper job in the industry. I’d done a Coming Up before that for Channel 4 but that was more an entry level thing. A Young Doctor’s Notebook with Daniel Radcliffe and Jon Hamm was my first job. Thankfully Kenton (Allen, CEO Big Talk Studios) took a punt on a new director at Daniel’s request. Daniel wanted to work with an up-and-coming director and that was me off and running after that, which was a fantastic relief at the time!

What did you respond to first when you read the scripts?

I was drawn to the tone being a very unusual blend. I thought the humour was finely judged and laugh-out-loud funny. There was a sophistication to the idea of the puzzle setting and the detective taking on cases and trying to solve them through looking at them as puzzles rather than crimes. I really loved the idea of working with David and how the show had been written with him in mind. Mark’s dialogue felt so relatable with David’s voice in it. Each episode has a distinct visual approach, which appealed to me and there is a lot of emotion in the series. There is a slow-burning love story between David’s character John, and Anna Maxwell Martin’s character Lucy and the show is about family. It has an emotional core to it. The fact that James has gone missing. He’s left his wife and child in a situation that’s hard for them and John’s tried to support them. John is also remembering what it was like to lose his own father as a child. All those different layers were really interesting to work with.

What are the TV murder mysteries that you most enjoy?

Poker Face is a really smart, funny, enjoyable show. Like Ludwig it has got an offbeat sensibility and an interesting humour to it. There is a sophistication in the way the crimes have been set up and solved and there is an interesting guest cast every week that brings a different identity to each episode.

What do you love about David Mitchell as Ludwig?

David is such a phenomenal performer. He is so likeable, and you love being with him. He is very, very funny but also David puts in a beautifully nuanced performance that has got a lot of emotion. At the end of the first episode there is a scene where John sees his nephew Henry has discovered a letter that was left by his father. It reminds John of the night his own dad left and seeing the letter his mother read of his dad leaving her. The performance that David gives in that scene, just the look on his face is so subtle but so moving and so beautiful. One of the most beautiful things about working on this job has been discovering that part of David Mitchell as an actor.

What do you love about David and Anna’s chemistry together?

David and Anna are such a special pairing. I kept thinking I was so lucky to see them together for the first time on-screen. They have a similar comic chemistry together and a great energy as performers. David is a master of words and Anna is also incredibly funny with the way she uses language. Also, Anna has got a very enjoyable physicality and a kind of effervescent quality to her performance that David can sometimes offset with a deadpan approach and his masterly comic timing of how he can undercut things.

Did they have any questions for you?

No, they didn’t. The thing about Anna as a performer is she is very instinctive and impulsive. She is a playful actor so it was about letting her play and seeing how she and David would riff off each other. Whereas David is a very, very prepared actor who will stick to the text completely and then you can throw some different ideas in there with him as you go. Just being with John and Lucy when they are trying to solve a crime, put together clues and strategize what to do is exciting. It’s a ride you want to go on with them.

What does Dylan Hughes bring to the role of Henry?

Dylan is a wonderful actor. He brought a very emotive and grounded performance to Henry, and he has got a great dynamic with David and with Anna. He is a very naturalistic screen actor who is just very, very good at being in the moment. Also, you could really feel what was emotionally at stake for Henry since his dad has gone missing.

How has the puzzle solving aspect of Ludwig’s character shaped the visual tone of the show?

The central visual metaphor for the series for me has always been that John is a man who has spent a lifetime looking at the world in puzzle form. So, especially with the first episode, it was about how he enters the world of work, a very contemporary police station and getting a sense of how he is discombobulated by everything and trying to organise that visually. Over the whole series there is the puzzle of John trying to find out why James has disappeared, which predominantly happens in the workplace so I wanted the office to be a spatial puzzle that he had to navigate and unearth clues in. So I gave the office an unusual layout and design idea which allowed him to be looking for clues and trying to crack his brother’s disappearance right in the heart of the office where he could be found out at any second. Each episode has a different visual puzzle that needed to be visualised. Episode One was a syllogism, which was about plotting movement and positions so he could prove who the killer was. We set this up with an elaborately choreographed one take crane shot so you could see the movement of all the suspects in the building play out in real time as they leave work for the day, and the murder happens during that shot but we don’t see who did it. Episode Two was basically a spot the difference puzzle where John had to figure out what had happened to the man who is missing, so we made the house and all its features a big character in the episode. Episode 3 is a spatial puzzle in a church so the visual metaphor was about creating blind spots from the point of view of the witnesses, so John narrows his vision so he can focus on the details to help him solve the murder.

Does each episode have a different look to suit the murder puzzle?

In episode one it’s the office in the opening scene. Mark Brotherhood wrote this beautiful scene of the murder. The way it was written it all happens in one shot. You see lots of people moving through a building – through lots of grid if you like – at the end of a working day. One of the characters is alive talking on the phone but the next time you see him he’s dead and yet you haven’t seen how it has happened. You are left with a visual puzzle for Ludwig to solve.

Episode two is a spot the difference. The way we handled that puzzle was more to play it as a very frustrating situation for John because a spot the difference is so much easier than most puzzles he would encounter. It’s kind of beneath him. Yet he can’t solve it. The third episode in the church and on the River Cam, I was playing around with the idea of blind spots. John feels the reason that nobody saw the murder happen was their vision was obscured by where they were. The visuals are more about tunnel vision.

What discussions did you have with production designer Melanie Allen and your DoP Annika Summerson about the look of Ludwig?

Annika Summerson and I shot widescreen 2.39:1 with anamorphic lenses. With every scene we were thinking how we could push this to be cinematic but also to really engage with David the performer in this environment. How he is trying not to get caught while pretending to be his twin brother. At every turn he could slip up. We had to try and catch that energy and that humour as well as playing around with the idea of being a puzzle setter and seeing the world in puzzle form.

I worked very closely with production designer Melanie Allen especially on the design of the police station. I liked the idea of Ludwig hiding in plain sight. The office has an unusual layout of booths in the middle of the space for the police detectives. I looked at the Mattel offices in Barbie, which in my opinion were influenced by one of my favourite films, Jacques Tati’s Playtime, which was a 1960s critique of the modern workplace. We used a lot of the comic visual ideas of that. How David peeks over the edge of the booth to see what’s happening in the workplace or nearly gets caught when somebody comes into his booth.

Which locations were you most excited to film in?

I’m really excited by what we’ve done with this police station. It’s a fantastic piece of design. We did a lot of research into what police headquarters in different cities look like these days. There’s a common theme of very contemporary pieces of architecture. We enjoyed serving up something very different to other shows that have a police procedural aspect to them. I also loved the office in the first episode. It’s the Royal College of Pathology. It’s an incredible contemporary piece of architecture, very unusual and distinctive mix of concrete and wood, that really suited all the puzzle ideas.

Which locations provided interesting challenges?

Filming in Cambridge in the winter on a gondola was very cold. It was absolutely freezing. We were lucky that the day we filmed was beautiful sunshine so we could really enjoy the beauty of Cambridge filming on the water.

What was your most satisfying day of filming?

One of the most satisfying days was the opening scene of episode one, which is a crane shot that travels up and down the exterior of a building seeing the movements of all the suspects and seeing the murder happen. That was a very complicated thing to achieve on a show of this scale. We managed to borrow a technocrane from Mission: Impossible for half a day. We didn’t have much time to rehearse the shot, so I had to plan it to the nth degree before I got there. Where exactly everyone would be in the building at what time. How the camera would move up and down the building. We have ended up with something brilliantly cinematic and a compelling and distinctive opening to the show.

How has police advisor Malcolm Davies been of use to you with specific details of policing and crime scenes?

Malcolm worked very closely with the producer Georgie Fallon to give an overview of the whole show. How to do everything and how to make it feel real. We then carried that into all the scenes that we had. It was a very useful thing to have.

What do you hope audiences will enjoy about this series?

I hope audiences really enjoy seeing David Mitchell in the titular role as he is thrown into this incredibly unusual situation and seeing how brilliant a mind he has. To see David solving the murder in episode one where Ludwig is ticking off all the different combinations of letters and numbers of where people were in the spatial puzzle and doing this incredibly complicated monologue there are not many actors who could do that. David in full flow is incredibly compelling but also incredibly funny as he reveals the murders in a way that nobody else has revealed a murder before.

Interview with Director Jill Robertson

Director, Episodes 4-6

Kenton Allen loved your work on Last Tango in Halifax. Was there anything you took from making that show that fed into Ludwig?

As ever, it’s the importance of the writing. Mark (Brotherhood) and Sally (Wainwright) both have this amazing ability to go seamlessly between wit and pathos in an incredible way. And the energy of that juxtaposition really translates. It’s my favourite thing to watch, that balance. Of course, the other thing was the complete and utter joy of working with Sir Derek Jacobi again.

What appealed to you most about Mark Brotherhood’s scripts when you read them?

They stayed with me. That doesn’t always happen. I loved the pretence of this guy, John, going in and attempting to be somebody else because that gives you a tension across the series. Unless he’s at home with the Taylors there is always that underlying joke. It’s a fantastic concept. And I love that balance of funny and dramatic. I’m a fan of shows like Only Murders in the Building.

Where are we in the series story arc for John, Lucy and Henry by episode four?

It’s reached a really interesting point in the mystery of what’s happened to James, which is what John is there to find out. Things start to get a bit darker. At the end of episode three, we realise that there is somebody outside the Taylor house who seems to be watching them. That brings quite a different feel to episode four. It’s much more personal. Suddenly we think, ‘God, are they in danger?’ The comedy and wit is still there but there is much more of a sense of do they know what they are getting into?

How would you describe the murder-mystery in episode four? Ludwig calls it Rube-Goldbergian after the American cartoonist famed for his complicated gadgets.

It’s a complex way of getting to a simple ending. In this case: murder. It was by far the most intricate of the episodes that I had to do in terms of puzzle. It is very complex, and it took a huge amount of planning to do it accurately. Everything depended on the last bit of the puzzle and where all the characters were. And it all had to relate back to a chessboard for the denouement. Trying to translate a series of scripted moves from a chessboard, through a script, onto a 3-D building site was a challenge but a very exciting and rewarding one.

Are you good at solving puzzles?

I am quite logical, the way I look at things. I’m good at solving the puzzle of how to turn a script into a visual like the building site. I spent days and days there more I think than I’d done for any location in my whole career. I went back again and again until I had cracked it. I think I have more just a dogged determination. I’m nowhere near Alan Connor, our puzzle expert, or Ludwig. I like three-dimensional puzzles.

How did puzzle consultant Alan Connor help?

The brilliant thing about having Alan and Johnny Drewek, our Graphics Designer, who were our puzzle team, was that they gave us the confidence the puzzle was working on set. And that we understood it and that it was clever enough. Even when there is a flashback to John when he was a boy and there is a puzzle, we made sure that it was suitable for the situation and the characters and that if you freeze-frame the show and analyse all the puzzles, they all work. You must take your audience very seriously. That’s always at the back of my mind. You never take your audience for granted. That’s always been a tenet. We want to get the puzzles right anyway because Ludwig’s a puzzler. It’s the show.

What have you enjoyed about the chemistry between David Mitchell and Anna Maxwell Martin as John and Lucy?

It’s a great onscreen partnership. They are both very adept, experienced and excellent actors but they bring very different energy. It makes them fascinating to watch together. It was exciting to do scenes with them because they are both so very good at what they do.

Do you think we see another side of David as an actor in this role?

I think so. Particularly in episode six where we have some much more emotional, darker scenes. His range is fantastic. The breadth here, his pathos and the sympathy we feel for Ludwig – what he brings is amazing. The nuance was lovely. It’s how to create a fantastic new detective character. His performance encompasses all that comedy and wit, cleverly avoiding obvious tropes. David plays his emotional depth so brilliantly. His scenes with Derek [Jacobi], in particular, which was one of my favourite days on set, were phenomenal. They really played well together. It was such a privilege to be on set with them.

What does Anna bring to Lucy?

She brought a massive energy and a great wit. She’s a fast-thinking, confident and direct foil for the more thoughtful, reserved Ludwig. There is a great scene where Lucy has been watching a film with her son Henry. He goes to do his homework and Lucy asks John to just sit and watch with her. He wants to go off and keep investigating the cipher because previously she’s been saying to him that he’s got to crack on with it. But she really wants him there and as she sits you see all the vulnerability and all the reality of what is going on with her missing her husband. Anna doesn’t speak but you see all that running through her. It’s phenomenal. It’s really moving. When you get those glimpses that makes her very three-dimensional and a really developed character.

Do we see how everything is affecting Henry’s character played by Dylan Hughes?

That really starts to hit home in the second half of the series. It’s upsetting enough that it’s his dad who is missing but time is moving on and they haven’t solved anything. John is not quite replacing his dad, but you have this other figure in the house who his mum is talking to. There’s a scene in episode four where it has really hit him emotionally. Dylan was great. He really took that on.

There is a great scene between Dylan and David in Episode 6 where John pretends to comfort an upset Henry as his ‘dad’ but then realises he needs to comfort him for real as his uncle. Is that a favourite?

It’s a lovely scene, and moving. They also have a scene together in episode four where Dylan really shines. He could bring that pain but also deliver that in a very teenage way of expressing it but not expressing it. John hears it and in a very John way deals with it by talking about emotions through the chess board.

What do you love about the byplay between sergeants Simon Evans and Alice Finch played by Gerran Howell and Izuka Hoyle?

That’s another lovely double act. We run with it a lot in my three episodes. Alice is very ambitious. She’s very by the book and quite literal. Simon is not the same as Ludwig, but he is more akin to him. He sort of idolises him, which is very sweet. There is a lot of funny stuff with them which is nice to have to cut through the procedural in the series. We have an amazing ensemble cast. This was my third outing with Dot Atkinson. We also did Harlots and Pennyworth. She’s great. I really enjoyed her portrayal of Carol in Ludwig.

One of the murder mysteries takes place in a public school. How was that to film in?

We shot that in a couple of different locations because schools are quite hard to access as they are filled with pupils most of the time. Again, it was quite specific. It had to have a bell tower. It had all these puzzle requirements. Things that you see from certain places. And then we spent a long time working out how the locked door could be drilled through. How that would work on-screen. I watched a lot of YouTube videos about how to crack locks. We had a brilliant actor playing our caretaker Barry (Pablo Raybould). It turned out he was quite handy with a drill anyway so that also helped.

How did it compare with filming in Grange Hill early in your career?

Very different. This was a posh private school and Grange Hill was very much the modern comp. But whatever kind of school it is – and we didn’t have a lot of scenes with the kids because there has been a murder – we did try and reflect a real school atmosphere, a realistic and naturalistic school. I enjoyed doing the rugby scene. That was good fun.

Did you have an inspirational teacher in your schooldays or at the National Film and Television School?

I had an amazing teacher called Jeff Rolt when I was 11. He was the person that made me realise that I had a creative side and that it had a value. He had a way of inspiring and a brilliant dry sense of humour. He was the perfect teacher. We stayed in touch for all his life. At the NFTS there was Sandy Lieberson, an American producer who worked on Chariots of Fire. He was inspirational. I stayed in touch with him as well. The most influential NFTS masterclass was producer Andrew Macdonald on Shallow Grave. I ended up going to work with him and Danny Boyle on Trainspotting. I learned so much from them.

Tonally how would you say Ludwig is different to another detective series you directed Dalgliesh?

With Ludwig you’re creating this whole new, iconic detective. That’s exciting to do. Whereas with Dalgliesh it was about taking this classic literary figure and finding a new and exciting way to tell the stories, which had been adapted before. We went very much back to the text and what PD James had written. That’s quite a big difference and then obviously the tone of Ludwig is more broadly comic, but I think all the great detectives have a wit that cuts through the darker parts. That’s what endears them to us. That’s what takes us beyond the procedural or murder narrative and makes their character. Cracker, Columbo, all those great detectives. The wit is something that somehow is shared with the audience that the victims and the suspects don’t always understand.

No spoilers but can you tease a little of how the story in episode six differs from the previous murder mysteries?

Murder comes a bit closer to home. I was amazed when I read it. I think it’s a fantastic final ep for a series. It goes in quite a different way. In four we have the classic whodunnit. Five is more of a howdunnit and it’s much more personal for Ludwig. It’s much more about him so the murder works in a different way. With six the serial story arc really comes in to land and the stakes become the highest. How are they going to get out of this? It’s a brilliant piece of writing.

Interview with Score Composers Nathan Klein and Finn Keane

From the moment Mark Brotherhood incorporated Beethoven’s 9th as a key element to John’s backstory, and of course the origin of his pen name ‘Ludwig’, scoring the series became a gift to any composer. This musical thread felt so exciting and compelled us to compose an original score using fragments of Beethoven as inspiration. We loved the depth of emotion our music could instantly possess by referencing Beethoven — it felt like we could weave a tapestry of John’s memories in the score — and also relished the puzzle of using a historical toolkit to compose new music that still felt appropriate for contemporary television. In our initial meeting with director Robert McKillop and series producer Georgie Fallon, we pitched that Beethoven was actually a very ‘pop’ composer with his economic use of memorable themes and that to draw on great existing works of art, as well as using melodic development as compositional fuel, was actually very Beethovenian in itself. We must have made some sort of sense to them as they were very supportive and up for trying something bold with the score. We feel very lucky to have been given the opportunity to work on Ludwig in this way and loved the excuse to sift through some of our favorite pieces of Beethoven, including the 3rd, 4th, 5th and 9th Symphonies, the ‘Moonlight’ and ‘Tempest’ Sonatas, ‘Für Elise’ and the Coriolan Overture.