David Mitchell hates TV viewers fiddling with phones during whodunnits

David Mitchell despises TV viewers who fiddle with their phones while shows are on.

The ‘Would I Lie to You?’ panellist, 50, has been a television stalwart since shooting to fame on ‘Peep Show’, and has now fumed programmes – especially murder mysteries – are designed to be watched without distractions such as second screens.

He was quoted in the Daily Express saying: “When I’m watching an Agatha Christie I don’t try to work out whodunit because I’m confident I’ll be told.

“If I’ve already worked it out, it will be less entertaining.

“It’s letting the information come to you rather than chasing it. Television is a passive medium. Stay still and watch it – put your f****** phone down.”

He added about his love of family friendly whodunnits: “I like a puzzle but I don’t love watching things that are horrific and gritty.

“But a key part of enjoying the episodes is not knowing what’s going to happen. “Some people don’t seem to mind knowing what will happen. I think that’s a bit mad.”

David also said he wishes more people were couch potatoes who don’t want to have multiple screens on the go at once.

He said: “People used to worry when I was a child about the fact that television was so passive.

“Now we dream of the return of the couch potato who is not simultaneously on their iPad.

“Don’t interact with it, don’t talk to anyone about it, watch it endlessly to the exclusion of all other activities.

“That’s all we ask from you, as the makers of television.”

David’s next role is a part in ‘Ludwig’, a comedy drama that starts on BBC One on 25 September, which sees him play a bogus police officer trying to solve the vanishing of his identical twin.