"I couldn't image how life could unravel so completely. It was so small and innocuous, such a barely perceptible sound" - Claire.
41 year old Claire (Rebecca Hall) leads what appears to be a happy, normal, life. A English teacher living in a pleasant house in a quiet cul-de-sac with her husband Paul (Prasanna Puwaranajah) and teenage daughter Ashley (Mia Tharia). Her life is turned upside down when she starts hearing a buzzing, droning, humming noise which nobody else can hear - and having nosebleeds to boot.
She can't, for the life of her, work out where it's coming from and nobody else, her husband, her daughter, her colleagues/friends, can hear it. In The Listeners (BBC1/iPlayer, written by Jordan Tannahill and directed by Janicza Bravo), we follow Claire on her tense and chilling journey into the source of that hum and what it all means. It's not, as a doctor suggests, anxiety, stress, menopause, or perimenopause. Claire is absolutely certain of that.
The trouble is, nobody else seems to (fully) believe her. Ashley starts to think Claire needs help and the situation puts huge amounts of stress on her marriage to Paul as well. When Claire discovers that one of her students, Kyle (Ollie West), also hears the constant hum she has an ally but when Kyle suggests they investigate together, Claire is wary. She's a teacher. he's one of her students (and one who is rumoured to like sharing weird location dick pics on WhatsApp), the ethical problems are obvious.
She joins him anyway and soon they find themselves attending a meeting with a select, and very disparate, group of others who can hear the hum and want answers. Hosted by Omar (Amr Waked) and his partner Jo (Gayle Rankin), the group include Teresa (Lucy Sheen), Seema (Shreya M.Patel), Tom (Ian Mercer), Emily (Karen Henthorn), and the hot-headed, if seemingly well meaning, Damian (Samuel Edward-Cook).
Some of them have been 'listening' for years, Omar for decades. Some, like Omar, accept living with it. Others, like Claire, want it gone. The group eat together, they clean together, they breathe together, and they 'listen' together. They look, to all intents and purposes, like a cult but are they a cult? If they are a cult then what do they want? And how does any of this explain the apparently very real presence of the hum?
In order to find out, Claire and Kyle thrust themselves (willingly) into a world of decibel readings, 5G masts, pylons (and lots of 'em), wind turbines, tin foil hats, observatories (Jodrell Bank makes a brief guest appearance), 'deep state' conspiracy theories, and discussions about Schumann resonances. Much of it at the behest of the deeply suspicious, and ice cold placid, Omar.
Claire risks losing her job, she falls out with her best friend Cassandra (Franc Ashman), she undergoes counselling with Dr Broodthaers (Kiruna Stamell), and she ends up at the fierce end of Kyle's mum (Siobhan, played by Niamh McCann) understandable anger and concern. What happens to the family garage door is best left for the viewer to discover.
With a Devonte Hynes soundtrack which goes from the classic folk of Nick Drake and Richard & Linda Thompson to a spooky cover of Opus III's It's A Fine Day, and references to Georges Bataille and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, it's a bit more hi-falutin' than your average BBC1 drama and it's so artfully shot it's more like watching a film than it is a TV show. Though whether or not that's a horror film or an arthouse film you'll have to make your own decision. The Listeners is a powerful, moving, and compelling drama and it's one the makes you think. For that it should be applauded. Life, it seems, can unravel completely from something that is small and innocuous.
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