BritBox’s ‘Ludwig’ and the enduring appeal of the amateur detective
Everyone—well, almost everyone—loves a good murder mystery, right? There’s something so satisfying about clues and context being revealed step by step, and nothing is more exciting than that moment when you think you’ve figured out the whodunit of it all before the lead detective does, whether you’re watching a TV show or reading a brand-new mystery novel. It’s a thrill! We all want to believe we’re smarter than the plot. Sometimes we are, and sometimes we aren’t. It keeps us on our toes and coming back for more.
This idea that we, the audience, can figure out the plot on our own is something we connect with in mystery fiction. That’s partly why the concept of an amateur detective appeals to us. When I say amateur, I don’t mean a newly promoted and trained detective in whatever country’s police force. I mean someone who is so singularly talented and out of left field that we have to suspend our disbelief a little to go along with the story. I’m talking about the Father Browns, the Miss Marples, the Jessica Fletchers, and the Agatha Raisins of the world. A tiny part of us would like to be like them, right?
These people use the knowledge they’ve gained from other areas of their lives to solve crimes. In the show Rosemary & Thyme, for instance, the leading ladies encounter an incredible amount of death while fixing up other people’s gardens, and using their botanical know-how, they solve those deaths. Without any police resources to back them up, these people unravel the crime and save the day. It’s a rush for them and the audience, and BritBox’s new original whodunit mystery perfectly slots into this storytelling tradition.
In Ludwig, comedian and actor David Mitchell plays John “Ludwig” Taylor, a master puzzle setter by day and a socially awkward recluse by night (and by day, truthfully). When his twin brother goes missing, his sister-in-law Lucy (Anna Maxwell Martin) ropes him into a dangerous yet wonderfully hilarious scheme: go undercover as James, John’s Detective Chief Inspector brother, and figure out why he went missing.
John’s logical, analytical, puzzle-honed mind allows him to investigate Cambridge’s numerous murders differently from his brother’s colleagues. He identifies patterns and probabilities before contemplating motive, means, and opportunity. In fact, he doesn’t contemplate them at all. Why should he, when his logic puzzles have already cracked the case? He’s not a police officer. All the rest of that is their job.
When I spoke to David Mitchell in February about Ludwig, I asked him why he thought audiences were so drawn to the idea of an amateur detective swooping in to save the day. Do we all want to be a little like Miss Marple or Jessica Fletcher, or is something else at play, too? Mitchell reasoned:
“I mean, the first sort of globally successful fictional detective was probably Sherlock Holmes. And while it is his day job, he is also not a police officer. I don’t know whether it comes from a sort of deep-seated cynicism about public services, and we all reckon some kind of motivated amateur is going to do better than someone for who it’s their full-time job. It must be very, very annoying if you’re in the police to see this in fiction, though there are plenty of detective stories where the police solve the crimes themselves.”
That’s true, of course. There are hundreds of widely beloved shows about police-trained detectives solving murders, like Shetland, Vera, The Murdoch Mysteries, Death in Paradise, Midsomer Murders, Inspector Morse, and so many more. Many (though not all) of these shows do represent an idealized version of the police, however—officers and detectives who genuinely care about their victims, never step a foot out of line, never abuse their power, and so on. In this day and age, there is understandably a lot of “deep-seated cynicism” about the police, and it’s a widespread issue. I reckon it’s certainly part of why we love the concept of an amateur detective so much. They have no authoritative power—they’re solving these murders simply because they are curious and because they want to see justice for the victims.
Like myself, Ludwig’s Mitchell also believes there’s an element of relatability. Most of us have no idea what police work truly entails. We don’t understand what it’s like to wield that kind of legal power and the responsibility that comes with it (whether that responsibility is taken seriously is another matter). The idea that your neighbor, your favorite writer, or even your local priest and his friends could solve a crime for you is inherently comforting. These are people we can relate to. They’ve led normal lives with normal jobs. They’ve just discovered a new hobby, as it were. A new talent. As Mitchell explained:
“I think, certainly, in some long-running detective series, whether it’s television or books, you’re then getting to know the character and seeing other sides of their life. Particularly, you know, Miss Marple is a sort of extreme example of someone where we’re massively suspending disbelief that she’s confronted with so many crimes, but we all want to be confronted by them so we go along with that.
The idea that such analytical intelligence should exist in someone who, you know, appears entirely mild and you know she hasn’t married, she never had a job, she’s not part of the busy world seemingly, and yet she’s noticed it from her village life to such an extent that she has the brilliance to analyze human interactions. There’s something very pleasing about that.
I suppose with Ludwig, there’s a pleasing sense of someone who’s just sat in a house thinking up crossword puzzles actually applying that to human interactions [and it] gives him special insight. I think there’s something appealing about that idea, even if it’s not that realistic.”
Murder mysteries offer a little bit of everything—humanity, fear, thrills, love, hate, intrigue, curiosity, intelligence, and a way to examine relationships and trauma. Some, however, like the amateur detectives we all know and love, also offer us something else that’s truly valuable—as Mitchell put it, “a nice piece of escapism.”
New episodes of Ludwig premiere Thursdays on BritBox. The full series is available now on BBC iPlayer in the U.K.
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