Broken SILENCE

REBECCA HALL on her haunting drama about a teacher tormented by an unsettling hum...

- CAREN CLARK

A woman’s life falls apart after she starts to pick up a strange sound that her loved ones seem unable to hear – that’s the intriguing premise of BBC1’s eerie new four-part drama The Listeners, which begins this week.

Adapted by Jordan Tannahill from his novel of the same name, the series centres on English teacher Claire Kutty, played by Parade’s End star Rebecca Hall, who’s happily living with husband Paul (Line of Duty’s Prasanna Puwanarajah) and their daughter Ashley (Phoenix Rise’s Mia Tharia). But then Claire becomes plagued by a low humming noise and also starts having nightmares and nosebleeds.

With no idea where the sound is coming from, she undergoes tests that fail to pinpoint a medical cause. She eventually discovers, however, that one of her pupils, Kyle (Ollie West, see panel, right), can also hear the noise. As the pair secretly team up to find out what is happening to them, they join a group of locals also claiming to hear ‘The Hum’ and who believe it is a gift, heard by only a chosen few. But as Claire gets closer to enigmatic couple Jo (House of the Dragon’s Gayle Rankin) and Omar (Ramy’s Amr Waked) and more disconnected from her family, danger beckons.

Here, Rebecca, 42, tells TV Times what to expect from the series…

What was the appeal of The Listeners for you?