Published: November 12, 2024 — Produced by Element Pictures (Normal People, The Favourite, Poor Things), a Fremantle company, and directed by Janicza Bravo (Zola, Poker Face, Mrs America) for BBC One and BBC iPlayer, The Listeners centres around Claire (Rebecca Hall), a popular English teacher, who begins to hear a low humming sound that no one else around her can hear.

This seemingly innocuous noise gradually upsets the balance of her life, increasing tension between herself and her husband, Paul (Prasanna Puwanarajah), and daughter, Ashley (Mia Tharia). But despite multiple doctors, no obvious source or medical cause can be found. When she discovers that a student of hers, Kyle (Ollie West), can also hear the sound, the two strike up an unlikely and intimate friendship. Finding themselves increasingly isolated from their families, friends and colleagues, they fall in with a disparate group of neighbours, led by a charismatic couple, Jo (Gayle Rankin) and Omar (Amr Waked), who also claim they can hear what they call “The Hum” – but rather than track down the source to stop it, believe it is a gift, heard only by a “chosen few.”

Enigmatic, provocative, and haunting, The Listeners explores the seduction of the wild and unknowable, the human search for the transcendent, the rise of conspiracy culture in the West, and the desire for community and connection in our increasingly polarised times.

Watch The Listeners on BBC iPlayer on Tuesday 19 November from 6am and on BBC One from 9pm that night.

• Interview with Rebecca Hall who plays Claire: https://bit.ly/3Cvlhxw

• Interview with Prasanna Puwanarajah who plays Paul Kutty https://bit.ly/40Rclwt