70 Up release date confirmed as ITV brings landmark documentary series to an end

More than 60 years after viewers first met a group of seven-year-olds in one of British television’s most ambitious documentary experiments, the Up series is preparing for its final chapter.

ITV has now confirmed that 70 Up will begin this week on Tuesday 15 September at 9pm on ITV1 and ITVX.

The new instalment returns to the lives of the people first introduced to audiences in 1964, completing an extraordinary television project that has documented them at seven-year intervals for more than six decades. 

The original 7 Up followed 14 children from very different backgrounds, with the programme initially examining British society and the opportunities their social circumstances might offer them.

Seven years later, cameras returned for 7 Plus Seven, beginning a pattern that would eventually take viewers through 21 Up, 28 Up, 35 Up, 42 Up, 49 Up, 56 Up and 63 Up.

What is 70 Up about?

Now in their seventies, the remaining participants are once again reflecting on the lives they have built and the extraordinary experience of having so much of those lives documented for television.

John, Bruce, Symon, Andrew, Suzy, Jackie, Tony, Sue, Peter, Paul and Neil are among those featured as the series looks at where life has taken them.

Their stories have included careers, relationships, marriages, children, grandchildren, personal setbacks and changing ambitions, giving generations of viewers a unique window into both individual lives and a rapidly changing Britain.

The programme will also remember participants who have died. Lynn, who became known to viewers as part of a trio of close friends, will be remembered, while the late Nick also features through material recorded before his death.

Charles, who stopped taking part after 21 Up, also forms part of the story of a documentary project that has never followed one straightforward path.

Some participants embraced the series throughout their lives, while others developed more complicated feelings about returning to the cameras every seven years.

When is 70 Up on ITV?

70 Up begins on Tuesday 15 September at 9pm on ITV1, with the programme also available on ITVX.

ITV has included the documentary among its confirmed Week 38 programming, finally giving viewers a firm date for the concluding instalment. 

The main series consists of two 90-minute programmes.

Two additional programmes examining the history of the project will also accompany the final chapter, giving viewers an opportunity to look back at how the Up series began and the remarkable archive it has created.

What are the extra 70 Up programmes?

7 Up: The Story explores the origins of the documentary and the Britain in which the original children were growing up.

It revisits the hopes, concerns and social divisions of 1964 while examining how the idea developed into a programme that would ultimately continue for more than 60 years.

70 Up: The Victorians takes a different approach by returning to archive material featuring people who were around 70 years old when the Up series itself began.

The footage had been rediscovered in ITV’s archive and has been restored and re-edited, providing a fascinating comparison between people entering their seventies in the 1960s and those reaching the same age today.

Together, the additional programmes extend 70 Up beyond another simple reunion with the participants.

They place their lives within a much wider examination of ageing, social change and the way Britain itself has transformed during the lifetime of the project.

Who directs 70 Up?

Academy Award-winning filmmaker Asif Kapadia directs the concluding instalment, following the death of long-standing Up series director Michael Apted in 2021.

Kapadia is known for documentaries including Senna, Amy and Diego Maradona, alongside his work across drama and documentary filmmaking.

Taking responsibility for the final Up films gives him the difficult task of bringing together decades of archive material while completing a project closely associated with Apted for much of its history.

Apted became involved with the project as a researcher on the original 7 Up before going on to direct the subsequent films from 1970 onwards.

His involvement helped turn what began as a snapshot of British childhood into one of the longest-running and most unusual documentary projects ever made.

Why the Up series became so important

Few television programmes have been able to show the passage of time quite like the Up series.

Viewers have watched the same people move from childhood into adolescence, adulthood, middle age and eventually their seventies, often seeing old ambitions alongside the very different realities that followed.

The result has been much more than a collection of individual biographies.

Across each instalment, the series has also recorded changing attitudes towards class, education, relationships, careers, family life and opportunity in Britain.

With 70 Up, that experiment reaches a natural conclusion.

The children who first appeared on television at seven are now entering their eighth decade, bringing one of television’s most remarkable long-term stories full circle.

70 Up begins Tuesday 15 September at 9pm on ITV1 and will also be available on ITVX. Image credits: ITV.