WATCHED - The Listeners

Claire (Rebbeca Hall) is a teacher, she's married with a teenage daughter. Her life appears to be well organised, content and enjoyable. She starts to be aware of a background hum that is persistent and distracting. No one else she knows appears to hear it. She has a lot of tests to try to ascertain what is causing this, yet nothing appears to fit the bill. Believing there is something psychologically wrong with her, her previously stable life begins to start spiraling out of control. Then one of her pupils reveals to her that he hears it too, and has found a group of folk all having the same experience

The Listeners, manages to navigate some pretty tricky subject matter, like teacher pupil relationships, without you losing sympathy with its central characters. As the story progresses it cleverly wrong foots your expectations where its taking you. The way the group gathers together because they all hear 'the hum' moves from providing support, to counselling, to spiritual guidance, eventually forming into an independent self supporting 'Family', separated off from the outside world, was very credibly handled.  Providing an almost textbook example of how a 'cult' could form around a shared experience.

Over its four episodes it subtly cranks up the stakes. It did appear to lose its grasp on how to conclude the story, how open ended did they want it to be? Is Claire over it, or merely pretending she was? Was 'the hum' a spiritual thing or just a geophysical phenomena? The ending felt a bit fractured and wavering until finally it settled on a surprise twist.  All in all a very satisfying well written series.

CARROT REVIEW - 6/8

Currently available to stream on BBC I Player.