Ludwig

(BBC1, Wednesday/full series on iPlayer)

Three stars

Puzzles are central to Ludwig, BBC1’s new comedy drama, yet it doesn’t need much head-scratching and pen-sucking to work out why BBC commissioners gave it the green light.

Consider its components. It is set in Cambridge, lovely Cambridge. The main character is an eccentric type who lives alone. He solves crosswords, and sets them too, under the pen name of Ludwig. Ticking all those Morse boxes there.

The murders are silly and quirky, as in Jonathan Creek, so they won’t keep anyone awake past bedtime. And the “hero”, if you can call him that, is played by the amiably bumbling David Mitchell, him off Mitchell and Webb and Would I Lie to You?

Ludwig, in short, is precision-engineered to appeal to the average midweek, middle-class, middle-brow viewer, and is utterly shameless in courting them. If Ludwig were on ITV it would be sponsored by John Lewis, but it wouldn’t be on ITV because it’s BBC and as such considers itself a cut above.

The action opens in London where John “Ludwig” Taylor is compiling a crossword. Not in the modern way using a new-fangled computer, but with paper and pencils and a giant wooden ruler. John doesn’t like change. He won’t leave the house if he can help it. So when his sister–in-law Lucy (Anna Maxwell Martin) orders a taxi to take him to her home in Cambridge it is a real break glass in emergency moment.

Lucy’s husband James, a Detective Chief Inspector by trade, has gone missing and Lucy wants John to find him. How? By pretending to be him. They’re identical twins, you see, and simply by looking like his brother, John can go into the police station and hunt for clues as to where James might have gone. And if he just happens to be around when a murder needs to be solved, he can apply his very particular set of skills to do so.

I know what you are thinking: 10 letters and 10 letters, first word begins with an H, second one a C: hopelessly convoluted. But stick around, Ludwig is just getting started.

James’s disappearance has echoes of a devastating night long ago when the boys’ father suddenly upped and left without explanation. No one ever found out what happened to him. Perhaps the mystery is being repeated.

Lucy greets John as “the Elvis Presley of puzzle setters” which in itself is a mystery. What does she mean? Does he compile his crosswords sitting on a gold toilet? Does he have a thing for high-collared jumpsuits covered in rhinestones?

Like a lot of other things about Ludwig, the Elvis quip doesn’t entirely work. It sounds clever, but it’s ever so slightly off the mark and fails to land. And are we really being asked to believe that no one can tell the difference between John and James, given they are supposed to be a chalk-and-cheese pair?

The stuff that does work in Ludwig you will have seen plenty of times elsewhere. Check out those Mad Men-style opening titles. The slick production values and tricksy editing are straight out of early Sherlock, Benedict Cumberbatch version, while the knowing touches, those blink and you’ll miss ‘em looks to camera, are pure Inside No 9.

While you could spend a good part of the hour listing comedy crime dramas that come to mind while watching Ludwig, there are other things to enjoy.

David Mitchell is well, David Mitchell. Posh, exasperated, Basil Fawlty on a peep. He’s no shape-shifter of an actor but he can sell a funny line. His partnership with Maxwell Martin works a treat, with hints of an unspoken love between John and Lucy bubbling below the surface.

The rest of the cast, including Scottish actor Izuka Hoyle (Boiling Point), playing a DS, are no slouches either. At the end of episode one there is a Netflix-style taster trailer of what is ahead. Among the goodies is an appearance by Felicity Kendal. Come on, Barbara from The Good Life is worth sticking around for, right?

That’s Ludwig for you: a little bit of what you fancy stretched a long way. It’s Kettle Chips viewing, best consumed with a glass of wine and a brain in neutral. Morse wouldn’t like it, or Sherlock, but you might.