Ludwig season two is out TODAY
David Mitchell returns as the eponymous puzzle solver
David Mitchell's offbeat crime comedy Ludwig returns for its second series at 9pm today (Thursday 20th August 2026). Fans have been awaiting the release date for season two, which has finally come around after being officially confirmed earlier this summer.
Show bosses released a first look clip of the detective show back in June, which sees David in the dual-role of twin brothers John and James Taylor, dropping hints about what we can expect to see in the series - and thankfully, it looks just as good as the first.
Alongside David. we also have returning cast members in the form of Anna Maxwell Martin as Lucy Betts-Taylor, Dipo Ola as DI Russell Carter, Dorothy Atkinson as DCS Carol Shaw, Ralph Ineson as Chief Constable Ziegler and Karl Pilkington as DI Matt Neville.
There are new faces Mark Bonnar (known for Line of Duty and Celebrity Traitors) as newspaper editor Gareth Fisher and Sian Clifford (known for Fleabag and Life After Life) as Joanne Kemper, an MP.
Anna Maxwell Martin was grilled about what we can expect from season two by the Radio Times, saying that the upcoming season is "cracking", going on to say: "I can't tell you anything because my mind's gone blank and I'll probably be killed and I don't know what I'm allowed to tell you!
"But what I can say is it's really, really good, I think it's even better than season 1. I think we've sort of built on what we had, and we've made it even better."
It's no surprise that the show has been renewed for more, as the BBC announced in September 2025 that the show had seen over 9.5 million viewers, making it the BBC’s biggest scripted show of 2024 and the biggest launch for a comedy since at least 2018.
What is Ludwig about?
Ludwig follows the story of internationally renowned puzzle setter John Taylor, who goes under the pseudonym of Ludwig, named after the classical composer Beethoven whose music forms the basis of the show's soundtrack.
After he received a mysterious call from his sister-in-law (played by Anna Maxwell Martin) to say that his police detective twin brother James had gone missing, John is drafted in to their lives and assumes his brother's identity at work in order to access resources to find him - and ends up proving to be a rather talented detective himself.
At the end of the first season, the family were a little closer to discovering James' whereabouts, while John had admitted the truth to his "colleagues" at the police station - who then give him a job as a "crime scene consultant".
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