The Listeners review: Rebecca Hall stars in the new BBC drama which is an intriguing, confounding, perplexing puzzle

I've watched the first two episodes now, and I'm still none the wiser about where it's going or how it's going to end up.

Adapted by Jordan Tannahill from his own novel, The Listeners is the story of Claire (Rebecca Hall), a teacher in a conventional marriage, a conventional house and a conventional town, who begins to be tormented by a noise.

She describes it as ‘The Hum’, and tells us in a voiceover at the start that “I couldn’t imagine how my life could unravel so completely”.

All very intriguing, but the first episode unravels so slowly and so obliquely that it starts to become infuriating.

Claire works out – by the simple expedient of blocking her ears with her fingers – that the sound is an external phenomenon, and not some sort of internal, psychological disorder.

And so she goes to the doctor, who dismisses her with talk of the menopause, and when Claire objects that she's too young, the perimenopause.

Claire insists on a battery of tests, which show up nothing, and the best her complacent husband Paul (Prasanna Puwanarajah) can suggest is wrapping some tinfoil round her noggin.

Meanwhile, she begins to investigate conspiracy theories around phone masts, until a sensitive, pale, guitar-playing pupil in her class, Kyle (Ollie West), reveals he can hear the noise too.

Very soon, they've swapped phone numbers and Ollie is vaping in her car as they travel about trying to measure decibel levels at their local windfarm.

It's difficult to understand how Claire so easily gets herself into a compromising situation as a teacher, and it's very easy to see it will have repercussions later on.

And when Kyle finds a support group for other people who can hear ‘The Hum’, Claire finds herself in trouble, both personally and professionally.

It's all very stately and yet very low-key, with shots of Claire – played delicately by Hall as a woman who has settled for conventionality yet still yearns for a bit of rebellion – putting her head against various household appliances trying to find a source for the noise.

Kyle, meanwhile, is an odd teen, who can play the guitar and sing, and joins in with extra-curricular activities while at the same time enjoying the philosophical works of Georges Bataille – who a quick Google will tell you was a very odd man indeed.

By the time we meet the other members of ‘The Hum’ support group, things shift in a decidedly odd direction, with leader Omar (Amr Waked) having the sort of blank-faced calm which hides a zealot’s rage and a cult-leader’s propensity for Kool-Aid.

Partly a parable about what happens when those closest to you refuse to believe you and dismiss your concerns and fanciful, partly a treatise on modern life and the need to beware of conventionality, The Listeners takes it's own sweet time to tell its story.

And yet, it exerts an odd grip on you, carrying you through an almost dream-like landscape where every day items lurk in the corners of the frame, carrying a subtle threat, and the ambient soundtrack summons up ‘The Hum’ that so afflicts Claire.

It’s a fascinating puzzle, all right, and one which will confound, perplex and, yes, intrigue you.