70 Up review – a deeply moving conclusion for the 63-year-long TV experiment — SkimNews
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- Granada Television launched the 'Up' series in 1964 with 'Seven Up!,' part of ITV's World in Action, introducing 14 children—10 boys and four girls—filmed at seven-year intervals over six decades.
- Michael Apted, who helped find the original children and took over directing after Paul Almond's first installment, died in 2021, two years after completing '63 Up.'
- Nick Hitchon, a Yorkshire farmer's son who became a nuclear scientist, requested one final interview after being diagnosed with terminal cancer, prompting the commissioning of '70 Up.'
- Asif Kapadia directed the final episode, giving it 'a more reflective and elegiac tone' than previous installments as nearly all participants are now retired.
- Symon, raised in a children's home, has fostered more than 100 children with his second wife over 20 years; Neil, once a bright Liverpool schoolboy who dreamed of Oxford, now lives alone in France dealing with lifelong depression.
- The final film includes meta-commentary on Apted's editorial influence—Jackie challenged his class bias and gendered questioning, while John described his manner as 'sneering and somewhat supercilious,' prompting Kapadia to acknowledge the series was shaped by one man's vision rather than objective journalism.
Why it matters: The conclusion of a 63-year longitudinal documentary is a singular event in television history, and the final film's candid acknowledgment of Michael Apted's editorial biases reframes the series from objective social observation into an artifact shaped by one filmmaker's assumptions—giving it new scholarly weight as a historical document rather than mere portraiture.
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