What if no one believed what you knew to be true? Jordan Tannahill’s nuanced thriller about a woman who starts hearing a mysterious noise keeps you constantly off balance
The question of what you would do if no one believed you is one of the most haunting there is. Believe you about what? Doesn’t matter. What happens if you feel a thing, know a thing or are having a thing happen to you, and you tell people – and no one takes you seriously?
That is the terrifying question at the heart of the four-part drama The Listeners, adapted by Jordan Tannahill from his book of the same name. The action is moved from the US to the UK, and Rebecca Hall (with a short haircut to allow for the ear-acting involved – you’ll see) plays Claire, a busy wife, mother, friend and a charismatic teacher of literature to teenagers at the local school. Then she, and she (apparently) alone, starts hearing a low, torturous, rumbling hum – from somewhere outside herself. She proves this by putting her fingers in her ears, whereupon it disappears. Her husband, Paul (Prasanna Puwanarajah), suggests tinnitus and doctors can find no physical cause.
