David Mitchell is causing double the trouble in Ludwig, the latest British television hit to make its way to U.S. audiences via BritBox. Ludwig sees the star of Peep Show playing John “Ludwig” Taylor, a reclusive puzzle creator who is asked to impersonate his detective brother James, in hopes of finding out where his brother vanished to. It’s one-part detective drama and one-part workplace comedy, and it’s been a smash hit with audiences.
In an interview with CBR, Mitchell spoke about how his love of detective dramas motivated him to add Ludwig to his already lengthy resume. He discussed the process of having to portray John playing James, and working alongside Line of Duty alum Anna Maxwell Martin. Plus, he teased what he’s looking forward to in Ludwig Series 2.
CBR: The British detective drama has become a staple in television around the world. What motivated you to want to throw your hat into this proverbial ring with Ludwig?
David Mitchell: It’s a type of television I’ve always loved watching. I love detective shows and whodunits, and the world of Agatha Christie and Sherlock Holmes. That’s my sort of comfort zone in terms of what I watch, and my only guiding principle career-wise has been to try and make the sort of thing I like. I love sketch shows and sitcoms, and I’ve done that. I love panel shows; I’ve done that. I like reading newspaper columns, and I write a newspaper column, and the history book I wrote, I tried to make it the sort of history book I’d like to read.
The big box that wasn’t ticked was detective shows. Because frankly, the more I worked as a comedian, the less I enjoyed watching comedy, because it felt like work. So I’m now going to ruin my viewing pleasure of the last type of show I still enjoy, which are detective shows. I grew up watching Inspector Morse, Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes, Miss Marple and Poirot. I love that kind of program. I still do, and the opportunity to make one — but with a bit of a comic spin on it — was something I was very pleased to take up.
You’re no stranger to playing multiple characters within the same project. How did you approach the task of portraying both John Taylor and, to a lesser extent, James Taylor in Ludwig?
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In the first series, I primarily played John, and so I did primarily just think about his character. The great thing about the way [Ludwig creator] Mark Brotherhood has written this show is it’s very, very clear what to do at playing John, because what you’re playing almost relentlessly is not his character, but his situation. And his situation is his brother’s disappeared, and he’s being forced to impersonate him.
He is a bit of a reclusive person. He works on his own from home, but frankly, what he’s going through would terrify anyone. Even quite an outgoing person would find what he has to do and the risks he’s taking in doing it thoroughly alarming. That’s what drew me to the part, and the way I played it was to play the situation, because the situation is very high-stakes, but also potentially funny.
Your primary scene partner is Anna Maxwell Martin, who’s played both detective drama in Line of Duty and detective comedy in Code 404. How would you describe working with her?
She’s brilliant. She was great fun to work with personally, and she is just a terrific actor, and magnetic on screen. I was thrilled she was doing it, but I also felt slightly intimidated because of her huge experience doing quite serious drama. I first saw her in the BBC adaptation of Bleak House, playing the central character, and she was brilliant in that. So I was intimidated.
But fortunately, she’s great fun, very happy to have a lot of laughs during the day, and I felt we worked well together on screen. I think it sort of clicked so it was great all around. As well as all the serious dramas, she also played the lead in Motherland, which is a terrific sitcom, so she’s got huge experience in comedy as well.
Given that you also are so experienced in and so well-known for comedy, how was it to wrangle the more dramatic elements in Ludwig? You’ve done dark comedy before, but nothing quite like this show.
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I love the fact that the show has comedy, has thriller elements, but also has proper sort of human drama in it. The human drama element was the side of it I was probably most nervous about playing, because I haven’t done so much of that, but I really like how it came out in the show.
I particularly like the way the end of the first episode is edited together, It gives a lot of the backstory in John and James’s lives, and explains their different approaches to their professional lives, and also [puts] that backstory in the context of what’s happening in terms of James’s disappearance. And I think that was brought together beautifully, and is a bit of the show I loved watching most.
But I would give the credit there to Robbie McKillop, the director, for having drawn that and obviously to Mark Brotherhood, because he wrote that in the first place. Having brought all that together in a way that really brings the first episode to quite a very satisfying and slightly moving climax. I thought [it] was lovely to be part of that, so I felt I didn’t screw up my performance in that bit. But equally, I can’t really take credit for why it worked so well.
Did your own experience as a writer inform your approach to the project?
I think so. Anyone who’s written as well as performed is sort of so aware of what any piece of writing that you’re performing is trying to achieve, and is sort of more on the side of the writer’s aims. You can’t have tried to express something in dialogue, and seen that go well and seen that go badly, not to empathize for the writer’s desperate hope that you don’t screw up what they’re trying to do.
I’m very much aware that the characters are means by which you tell a story. They’re not real people. So I’m always slightly suspicious when actors go, what have I carried out for breakfast? My view is if there isn’t a breakfast scene, your character didn’t have any breakfast, and you start thinking they did, then you’re giving into delusion. The character is only there to tell the story, and the story must come first.
Ludwig does have some great guest stars that you play off of in each episode. Were there any other performers whose work stood out to you?
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I was absolutely thrilled to work with Felicity Kendall in Episode 5. She’s a huge figure in British comedy, particularly from the sitcom she did with Richard Briers — The Good Life, which I grew up watching and it’s terrific.
Also, Derek Jacobi played my characters’ old schoolmaster in Episode 5, and he is a huge figure in British theater and TV and film, and also an incredibly nice man. We were all hugely honored that he was playing a part, and then his performance is delightful.
There were so many great people to work with on the show, and we were a very happy company. But those two were, a younger me would have been very impressed that I got to work with them.
BritBox viewers know that Ludwig Series 2 has already been commissioned by the BBC. So while they’re starting Series 1, is there anything you’re specifically looking forward to when you get to do this all over again?
When we made the first series, we didn’t know if anyone would like it, and now we know it’s gone down well here, and hopefully it will on BritBox as well. We know there’s an audience there for it, and that builds confidence, but equally, we’ll be terribly worried we will now disappoint that audience. So I’m really looking forward to doing it again as a show that now exists.
But equally, what I think we all desperately want to do is provide the same satisfying resolution each week and story arc and and also a bit of escapist, sort of chocolate box mystery. I love the fact that the show is set in Cambridge; the beauty of that city really adds to the show. It’s a boring answer, in a way, but I’m just saying we’ll be nervous. We just want to produce more of the same and have people enjoy it like they did the first run.
Ludwig streams Thursdays on BritBox. A second series is in development for BBC One.
