"Ludwig" saw David Mitchell play, in theory, a pair of identical twins – one a socially awkward loner with a penchant for puzzles and the other a go-getting and, this is key, mysteriously missing detective from the Cambridge police force. All six episodes are available now in the U.K..
Here's how to watch "Ludwig" online from anywhere with a VPN — and potentially for free.
"Ludwig" premiered on Wednesday, September 25 on BBC One at 9.p.m. BST (4 p.m. ET/ 1 p.m. PT). All six episodes are streaming now on BBC iPlayer.
• WATCH FREE — BBC iPlayer (U.K.)
• Watch anywhere — try NordVPN 100% risk free
Over six episodes, John "Ludwig" Taylor aimed to find his brother James but somehow found himself thrust into a series of murder cases that require his peculiar skill set to solve.
Is he impersonating a police officer? After a fashion, yes, but he looks just like him. Cue hilarious set-piece confusions and character reveals as he lives his brother's life for an extended period of time.
If you like David Mitchell, you'll love it (and there is a full Q&A with the actor below). If you don't, you might want to watch "The Great British Bake Off" instead.
Ready to crack the case? Read on to find out how to watch "Ludwig" online, on TV and from anywhere.
How to watch "Ludwig" for free in the U.K.
How to watch 'Ludwig' from abroad
Thanks to the wonders of a VPN (Virtual Private Network), "Ludwig" should be available to Brits no matter where they are. The software allows your devices to appear to be back in your home country regardless of where in the world you find yourself. Our favorite is NordVPN.
Using a VPN is incredibly simple.
1. Install the VPN of your choice. As we've said, NordVPN is our favorite.
2. Choose the location you wish to connect to in the VPN app. For instance, if you're away from the U.K. and want to view a U.K. service, you'd select U.K. from the list.
3. Sit back and watch the show. Head to BBC iPlayer to watch "Ludwig" episodes online and on-demand.
How to watch 'Ludwig' around the world
Can I watch "Ludwig" in the United States?
There are currently no plans to air "Ludwig" in the U.S..
However, if you are a Brit in the States for work or on vacation you can catch the show for free by using a VPN such as NordVPN, choosing U.K. from the list and selecting BBC iPlayer.
Watch "Ludwig" online and on-demand in the U.K.
If you live in the U.K. then you can catch "Ludwig" on Wednesdays on BBC One at 9.p.m. BST (4 p.m. ET / 1 p.m. PT). All six episode are also available to stream for free on BBC iPlayer right now. You'll need a valid TV licence, naturally.
If you're not in the U.K., you can still catch the show by using one of the best VPN services, such as NordVPN.
Can I watch "Ludwig" online or on TV in Canada?
As with the U.S. there are currently no plans to air "Ludwig" in Canada but if you are a Brit in the Great White North for work or on vacation you can catch the show by using a VPN such as NordVPN.
Can I watch "Ludwig" online in Australia?
There are currently no plans to air "Ludwig" in Australia right now but if you are a Brit working or on vacation Down Under you can catch the show by using a VPN such as NordVPN.
Can I watch "Ludwig" season 1 in New Zealand?
There are currently no plans to air "Ludwig" in New Zealand but if you are a Brit currently there for work or vacation you can catch the show by using a VPN such as NordVPN.
'Ludwig' cast list
- David Mitchell as John 'Ludwig' Taylor
- Anna Maxwell Martin as Lucy Betts-Taylor
- Dipo Ola as DI Russell Carter
- Gerran Howell as DC Simon Evans
- Izuka Hoyle as DS Alice Finch
- Dylan Hughes as Henry Betts-Taylor
- Dorothy Atkinson as DCS Carol Shaw
- Sophie Willan as Holly Pinder
- Ralph Ineson as Chief Constable Ziegler
- Jakub Bednarczyk as Young John
- Christos Lawton as Jamie
- Scarlett Brookes as Sarah Gilmarsh
- Tom McCall as Chris the Taxi Driver
- Stevie Binns as Carla
- Mia Austen as Jane
- Catherine Skinner as Claire
- Ikky Kabir as Brian
- Kewell Ganas as Alan Howells
'Ludwig' season 1 episode guide
Episode 1: Puzzle setter John ‘Ludwig’ Taylor’s life of solitude is upended when his identical twin, DCI James Taylor, disappears. Drafted in by his sister-in-law Lucy, John reluctantly assumes his brother's identity as a detective in the Cambridge Police Authority in order to find clues to his brother’s whereabouts. John is tasked with infiltrating the major investigations team, gathering information and solving a completely unconnected murder, all whilst remaining in character as his brother. A difficult ask for anyone, let alone a reclusive puzzle-setting genius who rarely leaves the house. Can this master of all things cryptic crack his biggest puzzle yet?
Episode 2: After a breakthrough finding a coded notebook, John decides to return to the police station to gather more information about his missing brother’s last case. Before John can make much progress, his thirst for all things cryptic sees him drawn to another grisly crime scene at a grand manor house. What looks like a missing person’s case turns into something far more sinister as John puts his puzzle mind to work. Back at home, a frustrated Lucy takes matters into her own hands and embarks on a fact-finding mission to the home of one of her husband’s ex-colleagues.
Episode 3: With new information about Chief Constable Ziegler, John is sent back to the police station to get closer to DI Russell Carter, his brother’s new partner who mysteriously arrived around the same time that James disappeared. A new case takes John and Russell on a walking tour of Cambridge, where they are faced with an impossible question: why would someone kill a tour guide that they’d only just met? To get closer to the truth about what happened to conspiracy blogger Roger Sinclair, Lucy goes undercover and makes a shocking discovery of her own.
Episode 4: A body falls from the fourth storey of a construction site. Was it just a terrible accident, or a perfectly executed murder? John’s team think he’s losing his touch when he latches on to a far-fetched theory and starts pointing fingers. When things don’t quite add up, John begins to question his abilities both at work and at home, whilst Lucy’s frustration at their lack of progress in finding her husband reaches fever-pitch.
Episode 5: John and the gang go back to school to investigate the suspicious death of a headmaster. In doing so, John is faced with his own bad memories of school but is pleasantly surprised when he reconnects with his old mentor, the man who taught him everything about puzzles. With John distracted by the case, Lucy follows a new lead which she hopes will bring her closer to finding James. Lucy’s covert mission takes her to Wales, but she’s not the lone wolf she thinks she is, and her discoveries leave her rattled. A shocking revelation from IT consultant Holly forces John to question everything.
Episode 6: With Lucy embroiled in a murder plot, all eyes are on John. The hunt for James takes a back seat as John desperately battles to prove Lucy’s innocence. Angry at James for abandoning his family, John questions whether his brother is worth any of this. As the pressure ramps up, Lucy admits that what she needs right now isn’t James or John, it’s Ludwig. Is it time for John to come clean and reveal his true identity to the team?
'Ludwig' FAQ
Will there be a season 2 of "Ludwig"?
Viewers that have finished the fantastic first season of the crime comedy will know that multiple threads were left hanging as the debut outing wrapped. Fans have been clamoring for more, and while nothing is confirmed just yet, David Mitchell has said he hopes for a sophomore outing for the detective.
What has David Mitchell said about "Ludwig"?
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 else can I watch on BBC iPlayer?
Lots – including "I Kissed a Girl", "The Assembly", "This Town", "The Space Shuttle That Fell to Earth", "The Reckoning", "Navalny" and "The Stones and Brian Jones".
More from Tom's Guide
