Review: 'The Listeners' moves slowly but demands that you hear the hum

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“The Listeners,” which premieres Friday on Starz, began unusually as a story written by Jordan Tannahill as the basis of Missy Mazzoli‘s 2022 opera, also called “The Listeners” (libretto by Royce Vavrek), which he turned into a 2021 novel, which became a 2024 BBC television series, also written by Tannahill.Starz has cut its original four episodes into five, which means that they end in odd places, but given its controlled, glacial pace, shorter might be better.Tannahill’s inspiration is an unexplained phenomenon reported in the real world — though exactly how real it is is open to interpretation — generally called “the hum,” where people experience a low but persistent background noise inaudible to others.

(It isn’t tinnitus, or any diagnosable medical condition.) One such sufferer is Claire (Rebecca Hall), a high school literature teacher with a husband, Paul (Prasanna Puwanarajah) and a teenage daughter, Ashley (Mia Tharia), with whom she gets along well.We begin on an up note, Claire and Ashley singing along to Richard and Linda Thompson’s “I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight” as they drive to school (she also has Nick Drake on her phone).

And then the 1970s British folk rock gives way to a less pleasant auditory landscape, as the hum appears, bringing on headaches and nosebleeds and affecting her concentration and mood, her work and family.Any condition can be isolating from those who don’t share it, and Claire gets some relief when she’s approached by a student, Kyle (Ollie West), who also hears it.They go investigating possible sources of the sound — wind turbines, a radio telescope — and wind up eventually at something like a support group for hum-hearers run by Omar (Amr Waked) and Jo (Gayle Rankin).

There is some sketchiness in their past, including a changed identity, and they like to keep the group on a tight rein, but the brea...