Get all your news in one place.
100’s of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Hollie Richardson, Ali Catterall, Phil Harrison, Jack Seale and Simon Wardell

TV tonight: Rebecca Hall’s intriguing drama about a strange noise

Rebecca Hall as Claire and Ollie West as Kyle in The Listeners
‘Phantom buzzing’ … Rebecca Hall as Claire and Ollie West as Kyle in The Listeners. Photograph: Will Robson-Scott/BBC/Element Pictures

The Listeners

9pm, BBC One
A curious new drama – from the producers of Normal People, The Favourite and Poor Things – that will have you guessing throughout and leave you with a phantom buzzing in your ears. Rebecca Hall is Claire, a teacher, wife and mother who one night notices a low-level humming noise that doesn’t go away. It’s not tinnitus and the doctors are stumped, which leaves Claire feeling isolated, exhausted and acting oddly towards her family. Some relief finally comes in the form of her student Kyle (Ollie West) confiding in her that he also hears “the Hum”. They team up to get to the bottom of it – but what and who will they find on the way? And will there be a logical explanation? Hollie Richardson

Mary’s Foolproof Dinners

7.30pm, BBC Two

They spent seven years side by side in the Bake Off tent. But they’ve never actually cooked together. Yes, Sue Perkins is Mary’s guest today, but how to guide someone who loves cooking “silly, frou-frou things”? By following recipes? Not so much. Coming up: chimichurri pork and rhubarb pie. Ali Catterall

The Great British Bake Off

8pm, Channel 4
We’ve reached the semi-final stage of the baking contest and this year’s has slipped down slightly more easily than the often torturous 2023 series. Patisserie is on the menu – expect breakfast pastries in the signature, a theatrical technical challenge and fruit entremet in the showstopper. Phil Harrison

Ben Fogle: New Lives in the Wild

9pm, Channel 5
Fogle returns to the woods outside Bury St Edmunds where, in 2022, he travelled back to a time before the bronze age in the company of 50-year-old Will Lord. Is the face paint as vivid and the campfire as warm as they were two years ago? Jack Seale

The Day of the Jackal

9pm, Sky Atlantic
This thriller starring Eddie Redmayne as the titular assassin is intriguing enough without ever transcending the memory of the masterly 1973 film of the same name. Following his shootout with Lashana Lynch’s Bianca, the Jackal must escape his captors and regroup ahead of his next hit, as Bianca follows his trail. PH

Cheaters

9.45pm, BBC One
The zippy (each episode is less than 15 minutes) but nuanced comedy about an affair returns, asking: can a relationship that started as an affair really work? Fola (Susan Wokoma) and Josh (Joshua McGuire) are now a couple, but their exes are still very much in their lives – in fact, Esther (Callie Cooke) has just returned to their flat fresh from her travels. HR

Film choice

Agent of Happiness (Arun Bhattarai, Dorottya Zurbó, 2024), 10pm, BBC Four

The Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan is carrying out a survey of gross national happiness, and Amber Kumar Gurung has been employed to question people on how they are. As Arun Bhattarai and Dorottya Zurbó’s heart-tugging documentary follows him around assessing folks’ feelings, we get fascinating insights into the lives of a trans performer, the daughter of an alcoholic single mother, a man with three wives – and Gurung himself: 40, single and, being of Nepalese heritage, not even a citizen. Unexpectedly, a mood of sadness, not happiness, persists. Simon Wardell

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100’s of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.