Who Is DC Simon Evans in Ludwig?
DC Simon Evans is played by Gerran Howell in Ludwig. He is a detective constable in the original Cambridge investigating team.
A Series 1 member of the core police ensemble whose episode attendance should be confirmed from individual credits.
Who is DC Simon Evans?
Detective Constable Simon Evans is the most openly enthusiastic member of the Series 1 Major Investigations Team. He works with DI Russell Carter and DS Alice Finch under the man he believes to be DCI James Taylor. Simon is willing to follow John’s unusual diagrams and reconstructions even when their purpose is not immediately clear, which makes him a useful bridge between abstract puzzle solving and practical police work. His optimism also gives the station warmth without removing his responsibility as a detective. Simon and Alice transfer before Series 2, so the later team roles pass to Ethan Cole and Caitlin Sullivan.
Show their full story (spoilers)
Simon is introduced during the office murder in Series 1 Episode 1. John is struggling to imitate James and to understand the building’s personnel, while Simon treats the senior officer’s questions as part of the job. The team’s collection of movements lets John isolate Sarah Gilmarsh as the only suspect who fits the distraction, forgery, call and stairwell sequence.
In Episode 2, Simon helps investigate Peter Williams’s disappearance from Bryce Manor. The case moves from searches outside the house to the recognition that the delegates altered the building itself. Simon’s readiness to act on an unconventional hypothesis supports the discovery behind the rebuilt wall and the exposure of the group’s cover-up.
The tour-guide murder in Episode 3 uses photographs, sightlines and a public walking route. Simon contributes to the team work required to compare the tourists’ accounts while John identifies Adrian Tate’s prior reason for joining Megan’s group. The solution depends on ordinary evidence being collected carefully enough for the phone photograph and earlier crime to connect.
Simon is particularly useful in Episode 4, where John turns a construction rota into a positional puzzle. Workers have exchanged tasks in a sequence that steers Martin Symes towards an electrified generator. Simon follows the grid logic and helps make the swaps intelligible to the investigation. The episode also places him near John’s growing suspicion of Holly, although he does not know the full reason for John’s system access.
At the school in Episode 5, Simon is part of the inquiry that rejects the headmaster’s apparent suicide. He later overhears part of John and Holly’s tense exchange, giving him a fragment of the personal story without the context needed to understand it. That moment makes the finale’s revelation less isolated: odd details around his senior colleague have been accumulating.
In Episode 6, Simon learns that John has been impersonating James. The disclosure redefines every instruction he accepted during the previous cases. He still participates in the police response that clears Lucy and identifies Adam Newsum as Holly’s killer. Series 2 reports that Simon and Alice have transferred to another station. The programme supplies no named Series 2 case for him, so his arc concludes with the consequences of the impersonation rather than an invented continuation.
Reveal key episodes — contains spoilers
Key episodes
- Series 1 Episode 1 — Simon supports the first office reconstruction.
- Series 1 Episode 2 — He helps turn a disappearance into a manor-house murder case.
- Series 1 Episode 4 — The construction rota makes his practical support especially visible.
- Series 1 Episode 5 — He hears a fragment of John and Holly’s conflict.
- Series 1 Episode 6 — The imposture is revealed to the whole team.
Relationships
Simon admires the problem-solving ability he attributes to James, which makes John’s confession personally disorienting as well as professionally serious. Carter and Alice are the colleagues who give his enthusiasm a working structure, while Carol is the senior authority he answers to. Holly’s death turns a familiar station colleague into the centre of the case that breaks the team’s assumptions. Lucy is first an outsider protected by John’s secrecy and then the suspect whose innocence the unit must test. Simon has no established working relationship with Ethan or Caitlin because they join after his transfer.
About Gerran Howell
Gerran Howell gives Simon an eagerness that is comic without making the detective foolish. The character’s belief in his colleagues helps the ensemble feel like a functioning unit and raises the cost of John’s deception. Visit the Gerran Howell performer profile for the actor’s broader career.
Read the evidence and sourcing method for DC Simon Evans’s profile.
Howell’s Series 2 update
In the Radio Times interview reported by AOL on 24 March 2026, Gerran Howell said he would not return for Series 2, while expressing a hope that a future return remained possible. That hope is not a confirmed later appearance. Source.
Ethan Cole and Caitlin Sullivan are the new constables in the second-series cast. Source.