The Listeners pulses with eerie intensity, a chilling, slow-burn psychological drama that lingers in your mind like the phantom hum that haunts its protagonist. Produced by Element Pictures—the powerhouse behind Normal People and The Favourite—and directed by the visionary Janicza Bravo (Zola, Poker Face), this BBC One and iPlayer offering hooks you with an unsettling premise and refuses to let go.
Rebecca Hall shines as Claire, a respected English teacher whose life unravels when she begins to hear a low, inexplicable humming sound that no one else can detect. It’s not just the noise that creeps under your skin—it’s how it fractures her world. Her once-stable relationships with husband Paul (Prasanna Puwanarajah) and daughter Ashley (Mia Tharia) buckle under the weight of her growing obsession. But it’s when she discovers that one of her students, Kyle (Ollie West), hears it too that the story takes a turn into stranger, darker territory.
Bravo orchestrates a symphony of unease, crafting a provocative tale of alienation and the desperate human hunger for connection. As the hum intensifies, The Listeners deftly weaves themes of transcendence, paranoia, and the thin line between community and cult. This is prestige TV at its most enigmatic—a razor-sharp reflection of our fractured times, steeped in existential dread.
What drew you to The Listeners?
Before even reading the scripts, I was keen to join The Listeners. It was such an odd premise where there are so many possibilities, and that was a draw for me. I’m also a very big fan of director, Janicza’s work and knew her a little bit. So, the combination of those two things was an immediate no brainer for me before reading the scripts.
What were your initial thoughts when you read the scripts?
What I really enjoyed about the scripts is that it explores a mystery that is located in someone’s subjective experience. To the rest of the world if there is no way to prove an experience a person is claiming to go through the conclusion is to brand them as crazy. For Claire, a subjective experience is happening, and she is desperately hunting for answers. This throws up the question of how do you prove something that is subjective or that is felt. Leading to a larger metaphor about believing someone. The story ends up taking you down this journey of what can you believe through Claire, where you are thrown into two possibilities, and no actual way to prove either one.
It was very interesting to think about how people treat women’s experiences or how people listen to a woman when she says she is going through something difficult and ultimately in pain. How it’s met with disbelief, minimised or shifted in some way, that’s explored a lot in The Listeners.
What can you tell us about Claire?
The series is Claire’s story and that is quite rare to come across. Where a series spends a substantial length of time focused on one person’s perspective. Fundamentally, Claire is quite normal, there’s nothing particularly extraordinary about her. She’s charismatic and outspoken. She’s the kind of person that was fun to be around in her younger days. Maybe a bit punk, a little bit of a wild card. But where we meet her in the series, she is living a normal, fulfilled existence. She has a child who’s about to leave home and she is married. She’s a teacher at a high school teaching literature. She’s smart and savvy. She’s a modern everywoman!
Tell us about the relationship between Claire, Paul and Ashley?
Claire’s household is a very functional, loving and happy family unit. She appears to have a good relationship with her husband, and they had their daughter quite young. So now they are both very settled.
But then this seemingly quite banal thing of Claire hearing an annoying sound starts to cause things around Claire to unravel. All these elements; her relationship with her daughter, husband, her home and her family, we quietly see everything getting dismantled.
Describe what it’s like for Claire when she first starts to hear The Hum?
Claire is the only person who apparently can hear it. Until she finds other people, who, also claim to possibly hear it. But this leaves the question of how this can be proven. It’s like colour, everyone experiences it differently. If a member of a family starts to experience something that everyone else in the family doesn’t, it becomes alienating and pernicious. Slowly The Hum becomes more and more dangerous and wreaks havoc.
Tell us about Claire’s relationship with Kyle.
Claire is under the belief for a long time that she is the only person who can hear The Hum. She goes through all the medical tests to find out if there’s something wrong with her physically or mentally and ascertains that there isn’t. Leaving her in nowhere land and she starts to believe that she is going crazy. So, when she comes across Kyle who is having the same experience there is an immediate sense of connection between them. For Claire there is a sense of relief, parity that what she is going through is real. However, Kyle is one of her students, which raises a lot of complications.
What can you tell us about the themes explored of common connection and community?
This story does look at human vulnerabilities and what makes you susceptible to people who might be emotionally manipulative. But it also speaks to a desperation that forces people to become emotionally manipulative because they are equally vulnerable and want to feel connection with other people.
The show to me isn’t about ‘cults’, it’s much more interesting than that. As it’s more about the people who are susceptible to them. Often, it’s the people you least expect. It’s the people who are smart and have their head screwed on. The Listeners speaks to the fact that we’re all vulnerable and at times, desperate and susceptible to all kinds of things to make us feel safer and less alone.
How did you find working with the cast?
I have admired Prasanna from afar for a while, he’s an incredible actor and I knew of his work as a theatre director. I was thrilled to get to work with him, he’s just a dream. He is so present and thoughtful and articulate about the way he works. It’s a very nice environment to be in.
I was also excited to work with actors who are just starting out. Mia for example is very new to this but also has such a wisdom and sense of purpose as an actor. She is incredibly talented and so instinctive, and I really have loved working with her. With Ollie, there is this natural instinctive quality, a sort of gut response that comes to actors who haven’t yet been doing it long enough to work out what their safe places are. It’s so immediate you really feel like you’re being listened to, and you can respond and play and that’s exciting. I felt that very strongly with Ollie. He has a very translucent quality about him, which is very powerful and he’s great to work with.
What was it like to work with Director, Janicza Bravo?
It was everything I expected and more. I have an unbounded respect for Janicza, she is a true talent, and she has such vision and such detail. She’s determined to get it exactly right, and there is no other way. There is so little compromise, and I love that. It’s interesting to work with a director where I’ve had such a feeling of simpatico, a sense that we’ve got each other’s backs on this. She’s one of those directors that I’ll do anything she asks for.
What do you hope audiences will take away from The Listeners?
The Listeners is very philosophically engaging and challenging. It’s entertaining and I hope that the audience go on the journey that Claire goes on and into a land of extreme beliefs that you wouldn’t have expected someone to believe at the beginning.
