The Listeners

You can look for metaphors and social comment here — there are references to conspiracy theories and industrial noise pollution and such — but it seems to me to operate most effectively as a beautifully rendered mood piece and character study, and, certainly in the case of Hall, whose story this is, a platform for some exquisitely subtle acting.

Let Rebecca Hall guide you down a rabbit hole of auditory madness — and maybe a kind of ecstasy? — in The Listeners. We heard you’re gonna love it.

At the series’ core is a deeply felt performance from Rebecca Hall. .... “The Listeners” is more cinematically expressive than most television fare; it creates a mood as much as it tells a story, and finds creative ways to depict characters losing contact with external reality.

“The Listeners” arrives with some of the appointments of a horror movie—and if one were subject to a constant roar like Claire’s, one might indeed scream. But the film proceeds at its own steady pace as measured by Ms. Bravo, with a psycho-cinematic complexity that transcends any routine mystery movie.

The only besetting flaw in the tale is that there is so much loving attention lavished on Claire and her unravelling that the other characters can feel underdeveloped. .... It’s a loud bum note in a thoughtful, thought-provoking drama otherwise full of nuance and put together with surpassing care and delicacy.

The Listeners can be challenging. But that doesn’t mean it won’t reward patient viewing. Bravo and Tannahill have created a parabolic nightmare that deploys genre conventions in service of an elliptical tale of human nature.

At a mere four episodes long, The Listeners is a fast-moving and punchy look at the myriad factors that can draw well-adjusted people to radicalisation; humanising the victims of conspiracy culture – but crucially, not downplaying the damage it has wrought.

An intriguing, ominous and slightly woo-woo four-parter.

Tannahill’s series cherishes dancing between the demanding allure of the unknown and the fearful certainty of what can happen when pursuing it. Hall knows the steps inside and out, crafting a layered, knowing character who never feels as abstract as the world around her, and Bravo breaks up many steady, static frames with dreamy, hypnotic imagery to better illustrate Claire’s slackening tether to reality.

The Listeners is finally a show in which big ideas and stupid plot contrivances intersect and often fail to resolve, a jumble of ambitions and flaws that Hall is frequently required to carry single-handedly. That she succeeds makes the series worth watching.

Thanks to the familiar writing of Tannahill’s novel with sharp nuance, the BBC production captures the subtleties of human connection and detachment that distort our understanding of reality.

There are times when The Listeners feels akin to a sprawling, uber-woolly episode of Black Mirror. But there’s also the sense that you’re partaking against your will in a televised immersive art installation, and I like that. Here is a drama that aggravates and intrigues in equal measure.

Its saving graces are Prasanna Puwanarajah and Mia Tharia as Claire’s husband and daughter, Paul and Ashley. While Claire drifts off into a world of hallucinatory oddness, these two keep the drama grounded by behaving exactly as normal people would in this situation – which is to treat Claire with sympathy at first, and then as if she’s gone completely nuts.

While one‑dimensional family dynamics and an uneven final act hold it back, Hall’s anchored performance and Bravo’s atmospheric direction ensure the unease lingers.