Who Is DS Alice Finch in Ludwig?
DS Alice Finch is played by Izuka Hoyle in Ludwig. She is a detective sergeant in Cambridge’s Major Investigations Team.
A Series 1 member of the core police ensemble, recorded separately from episode-specific guest casts.
Who is DS Alice Finch?
Detective Sergeant Alice Finch is a member of the Cambridge Major Investigations Team throughout Series 1. She works under the officer she believes to be DCI James Taylor and alongside DI Russell Carter, DC Simon Evans, DCS Carol Shaw and technology specialist Holly Pinder. Alice brings direct questioning and practical crime-scene experience to cases that John approaches as abstract systems. She is not told about Lucy’s substitution plan, so her professional relationship with “James” is built on an assumption the audience knows to be false. Alice does not appear in Series 2; the programme explains that she and Simon have transferred to another station.
Show their full story (spoilers)
Alice meets John at the office murder in Series 1 Episode 1. To her, he is a senior colleague returning with unfamiliar hesitations and a sudden appetite for drawing the suspects’ movements. She helps assemble the witness accounts that allow John to connect the fire door, forged signature, telephone delay and stairwell. Sarah Gilmarsh’s exposure gives Alice a result before she has reason to challenge the identity behind it.
At Bryce Manor in Episode 2, Alice is part of the police effort turning a reported disappearance into a murder inquiry. The altered wall, cleaned urn and staged car require searches and statements as well as John’s insight. Her presence helps ground the country-house absurdity in an investigation capable of recovering Peter Williams’s concealed body and testing the delegates’ collective account.
The Cambridge tour in Episode 3 asks the team to handle a public route, photographs and a group of apparent strangers. Alice works within the conventional suspect inquiry while John reverses its premise and shows Adrian Tate joined because Megan had photographed evidence of his earlier crime. The contrast does not make Alice redundant: John’s route theory matters because detectives have secured phones, timings and witness movements.
In Episode 4, the team investigates Martin Symes’s fall at a construction site. Alice participates in interviews around the rota swaps that Gary Jennings manipulated. The case illustrates her recurring position in Series 1: she gathers and challenges human accounts while John sees the combined pattern those accounts accidentally create. Holly’s deletion of John’s access trace remains outside Alice’s knowledge.
The school inquiry in Episode 5 gives Alice another staged scene—an apparent suicide in a locked study. The detectives establish strangulation and the suspects’ motives; John uses the fresh apple core and school bells to expose Mr Bishop. Alice still believes she is watching James solve the case, even as Mr Todd privately recognises the twin substitution.
That misunderstanding ends in Episode 6. With Lucy arrested for Holly’s murder, John reveals who he is. Alice must absorb that the colleague who led six investigations was an untrained civilian using James’s identity. She nevertheless works within the inquiry that clears Lucy and arrests Adam. Series 2 states that Alice and Simon have moved to another station. No broadcast event establishes a later role in the Kemper investigation, so her profile ends with the transfer rather than inventing off-screen involvement.
Reveal key episodes — contains spoilers
Key episodes
- Series 1 Episode 1 — Alice joins the office investigation that introduces John.
- Series 1 Episode 2 — The team uncovers the Bryce Manor concealment.
- Series 1 Episode 4 — Rota interviews support the building-site solution.
- Series 1 Episode 5 — The locked study is exposed as a staged scene.
- Series 1 Episode 6 — Alice learns that “James” is John.
Relationships
Alice’s main relationship is with the police unit rather than the Taylor family. Carter is the operational senior colleague beside whom she investigates, Simon is the junior detective sharing the Series 1 workload, and Carol oversees their results. Her relationship with John is defined by retrospective betrayal: the capable but peculiar “James” she followed was somebody else. Lucy benefits from Alice’s police work in the finale but was also part of the deception. Holly is a colleague whose hidden information business damages trust across the station.
About Izuka Hoyle
Izuka Hoyle plays Alice as an alert detective rather than a foil waiting for John’s explanation. Her brisk responses help establish the team’s working rhythm and make the final identity disclosure carry professional weight. The Izuka Hoyle profile covers the actor’s other screen and stage credits.
Read the evidence and sourcing method for DS Alice Finch’s profile.