Patience tested by the crawling pace and slow-building tension of The Night Caller

The Night Caller, Channel 5, Sunday at 9pm

At a time when it feels like it’s wall-to-wall football on the television or, even worse, Love Island, I was glad to see a trailer pop up for a new drama.

Even more intriguing when it’s billed as a ‘contemporary thriller’. Who would have thought this could be possible on our TV screens in the month of July?

The drama, The Night Caller, follows the troubled life of taxi driver Tony, played by Robert Glenister.

And from the outset, the opening scene demonstrates his troubles in brutal fashion when he is seen standing in the shower washing blood from numerous wounds.

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The opening music and credits roll as we see his bruised and bloodied face.

And that sets the tone for the drama that unfolded over four consecutive nights.

The Night Caller centres on what has been described as delving into how the “power of influence those with the loudest voice have over the most vulnerable people”.

The opening scene portrays the depths of isolation Tony has fallen into after losing his job as a respected science teacher.

Now left driving passengers around Liverpool (with the scenes actually filmed in Dublin), he leads an isolated, depressing life marred by constant flashbacks about a drowned schoolchild.

Tony is a man who is “going through the motions... existing rather than living”.

What may have happened is his past is soon highlighted by a passenger that climbs into the back on his cab.

Recognising him straight away from his teaching past, the man says “it wasn’t right the way they treated you”. Hours later Tony is seen outside a school, his past clearly still has a grip on him.

As these scenes are being played out, the voice of late-night radio talk show presenter Lawrence, played by Sean Pertwee, is heard.

“Here my friends is your safe space, get dialling”, he can be heard telling listeners.

It’s reminiscent of an American drama series from my childhood, Midnight Caller, which aired during the late 1980s and was regarded as one of the first to address the then-growing phenomenon of talk radio.

Listening to the show, Tony one night plucks up the courage and rings NightTalk to speak to Lawrence.

He soon becomes a “friend of the show”, a regular phone-in guest and amid the loneliness and isolation he faces on a daily basis, he feels like someone is listening to him.

Through the calls, more of Tony’s past is revealed, we learn how his “face didn’t fit” in the teaching job he once loved and also through flashbacks, viewers are given snippets of clues around why after 27 years of “loyal service” to teaching, he was “thrown on the scrapheap”.

But the only person Tony seems to be able to tell this to is Lawrence.

It marks the start of an obsession, an unhealthy fixation with Lawrence as he begins to interpret the presenter’s “world view” in dangerous ways that impact his life.

The programme is definitely what they describe ‘a slow burner’, I was probably only five minutes in when I thought it wasn’t for me.

But apparently the crawling pace and slow-building tension is planned, so much so that director, Diarmuid Goggins, even said that viewers need to stick with it and the ‘pay-off’ will come at the end of the four episodes.

“In our modern world there’s a need for everything to be fast paced, but this series is a slightly slower burn,” said Goggins.

I may not have wanted to see it through, the despair and the sorrow is all very heavy, but any patience is rewarded at the end of the episode when things really ramp up.

So try to stick with it.