The BBC has revealed first-look pictures for Element pictures-produced drama The Listeners, starring Rebecca Hall (Vicky Christina Barcelona) and Ollie West (The Sparrow). The Listeners is based on the novel by Jordan Tannahill, who has also written the adaptation, and is coming to BBC One and BBC iPlayer later this year.
Produced by Element Pictures (Normal People, The Favourite, Poor Things) and directed by Janicza Bravo (Zola, Poker Face, Mrs America) for BBC One and BBC iPlayer, The Listeners centres around Claire (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, and daughter, Ashley. But despite multiple doctors, no obvious source or medical cause can be found. When she discovers that a student of hers, Kyle (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 and Omar, who also claim they can hear The Hum, and who believe it could be a gift, heard only by a “chosen few.”
Also starring in the series, which was filmed in Greater Manchester, are Prasanna Puwanarajah (The Crown, Ten Percent, Patrick Melrose), Amr Waked (Ramy), Gayle Rankin (Men, Perry Mason, The Greatest Showman), Mia Tharia (Phoenix Rise), Franc Ashman (The Bastard Son and the Devil Himself, Inside Man), Samuel Edward Cook (Peaky Blinders, The Gallows Pole), Karen Henthorn (Coronation Street, The Rising), Lucy Sheen (Ping Pong) and Ian Mercer (Doctors, All Creatures Great And Small).
The Listeners is an Element Pictures production for the BBC. The series is written by Jordan Tannahill and directed by Janicza Bravo. Both also serve as executive producers, alongside Ed Guiney, Andrew Lowe, Chelsea Morgan Hoffmann and Rachel Dargavel for Element Pictures, Rebecca Ferguson for the BBC, and Alice Birch. The series is produced by BAFTA-nominated Ed King (His House, Suspect, Howl). Global sales will be handled by Fremantle.
