70 Up: ITV Reveals Final Ever 7 Up Series and Two New Specials

ITV has revealed new details about 70 Up, the final chapter of one of the most extraordinary documentary projects in British television history, alongside two additional programmes exploring the story and archive behind the landmark series.

Beginning with Seven Up in 1964, the project followed 14 children from different backgrounds and returned to their lives every seven years. More than six decades later, the participants are now reaching 70, bringing a television experiment that documented childhood, relationships, careers, families and changing British society to its final stage.

70 Up will be told across two 90 minute films, with Academy Award winning filmmaker Asif Kapadia directing the concluding instalment following the work of the late Michael Apted, who became synonymous with the series across its long history.

Among those returning are familiar participants including Tony, Peter and Sue, as the programme once again catches up with members of the original group and reflects on how their lives have developed since viewers last saw them.

The new films will not be the only 7 Up programmes coming to ITV. The broadcaster has also announced two 30 minute specials that will look back at the origins of the project and uncover another remarkable piece of television history.

7 Up: The Story will revisit how the original programme came about and explore Britain in 1964, looking at the society into which the children were born and the hopes, worries and expectations surrounding their futures.

A second programme, 70 Up: The Victorians, will feature archive footage of people who were around 70 years old when they were interviewed close to the beginning of the original project. Having been born during the Victorian era, their memories offer a striking contrast with the generation featured in 7 Up who have now reached the same age themselves.

The footage had largely been forgotten before being rediscovered by the MultiStory Media archive team during work on the new programmes. It has now been re edited and remastered, allowing viewers to hear directly from a generation whose lives stretched back into the nineteenth century.

That creates a fascinating comparison at the heart of the new special. While Andrew, Jackie, Bruce and their fellow participants reflect on reaching 70 in modern Britain, the archive provides an opportunity to hear how people of the same age viewed life more than 60 years earlier.

The original Seven Up began by asking children about their lives, ambitions and expectations for adulthood. What followed became something much bigger, with the cameras returning at seven year intervals and creating an unparalleled record of the same people moving through different stages of their lives.

Across the decades, the series captured changing attitudes towards class, education, work, marriage, parenthood and opportunity while allowing viewers to build an unusually long relationship with its participants.

The 7 Up Collection is available to stream on ITVX, with ITV set to announce full scheduling details for 70 Up and the two accompanying specials in the near future.