David Mitchell

The announcement might not come as a surprise after 9.5 million tuned in over 28 days, making it the BBC’s biggest scripted series of 2024 so far.

Mitchell stars as the genius puzzle designer John Taylor, alias ‘Ludwig’, who's just as socially awkward as Mitchell's iconic Peep Show character Mark Corrigan, albeit much less toxic.

Series one saw John’s twin brother James (also Mitchell) disappear in strange circumstances, much to the dismay of James’ wife Lucy Betts-Taylor (Anna Maxwell Martin).

Each hour-long episode follows Mitchell’s character, John Taylor, as he assumes the identity of his missing twin brother James in an effort to track him down. A shut-in with no spouse or kids, John has his work cut out for him pretending to be James, the busy Detective Chief Inspector heading up Cambridge’s inner-city major crimes unit.

Thankfully, John has his experience designing puzzles under the pseudonym ‘Ludwig’. Will his brother’s disappearance prove a mystery too cryptic?

Jon Petrie, Director of Comedy for the BBC, announced the slate during a speech at the BBC’s Comedy Festival in Cardiff. He said: “It’s no exaggeration to say that British Comedy is hugely important to television and the national cultural landscape. It is a public service and needed now more than ever.

Hosted by David Mitchell (Peep Show), the comics will be presented with different survival challenges to create their new civilisation. Previous tasks have included felling trees, milking goats, and writing national anthems.

Living in tents and stripped of life’s luxuries, the comedians have got one week to prove themselves as survivalists.

Executive producer Leanne Klein has promised “ever more creative challenges” in this series.

Richard Ayoade, David Mitchell and Tom Allen are among the talent making their debuts for the channel.

In Outsiders, David Mitchell will challenge three pairs of comedians across six episodes to a series of outdoor challenges.

Ed Gamble, Jamali Maddix, Jessica Knappett, Kerry Godliman, Lou Sanders and Toussaint Douglass will take part in the first series.

Mitchell said: “Civilisation is clearly crumbling so it’s high time we worked out whether we can cope without it.

To create a successful sitcom is one of the most difficult tasks in the TV firmament. To create a successful British sitcom that survives for 12 years, nine series and 54 episodes is staggering.

Unlike in the US, producers rarely have writers rooms on this side of the Atlantic, where teams of wordsmiths endlessly hone scripts to keep a show up and running. Remember, Fawlty Towers closed its doors after just two six-part series.

Helena Bonham Carter (The Crown) and David Mitchell (Upstart Crow) will star alongside Stephanie Cole (Still Open All Hours) Donald Sumpter (Game of Thrones) and Shobu Kapoor (Four Weddings And A Funeral)  in the upcoming series for BBC One.

They will be joined by Ruth Madeley (Years and Years), Layton Williams (Everyone’s Talking About Jamie musical), Zita Sattar (Casualty), Georgie Glen (The Crown), Bill Skinner (Ted Lasso) and Esmonde Cole (Still So Awkward).  

Viewers have been kept waiting for a second outing of Back, David Mitchell and Robert Webb’s bitingly funny Channel 4 sitcom, which returned to our screens at the end of last month.  

The delay had nothing to do with a lack of commissioning courage – how could anyone find fault with the filth and comic fury of Simon Blackwell’s scripts, the ever-watchable Mitchell and Webb or the fantastic ensemble cast?  

Mitchell is Stephen, a man who has failed as a husband, a lawyer and at running his late father’s pub. Worse, he’s been usurped in his family’s affections by the charismatic Andrew (Webb), supposedly a former foster child of Stephen’s parents.

“I like to pay the comic mattress on which people jump up and down – there’s a lot of comedy and fun acting to be had from the character that things are happening to,” said Mitchell.

He described Stephen as “disappointed and self-loathing and endlessly self-doubting, also intelligent and little bit angry.”