REMEMBER THAT TIME you were seven and you had a nightmare that a witch put a spell on you and you woke up in the body of an old man and you were screaming but you couldn’t wake up? Remember everyone then thought it was so moving and poignant? No, me neither.
In Britain we do cosy mysteries perfectly. From Poirot to Ludwig to Vera, we love high tea with murder. Well, turns out, we can also do cosy-horror. Put on the tea, love, another one’s dropped dead. You’ll laugh. You’ll cry. You’ll wake up screaming. 70 Up is to the living as the Netflix drama Adolescence was to teens. We should put this out to schools. We are all dying, and way sooner than we think.
It was the last series of ten produced by ITV that first started in 1964, following twenty (at the start) seven-year-old school children from different backgrounds, revisiting them every seven years.
The Guardian called it ‘deeply moving’. ‘Shattering poignancy’ was the Telegraph reaction. The portrayal does indeed contain the sadness of the undeveloped potential (Neil the Roamer). Then there’s the sadness of the developed potential (Nick the Scientist). It covered the class divide (three rich meanies and the three lovely poor girls), the sadness of little children in care, and amongst others a ballet dancer, a singer and a taxi driver. It didn’t seem sad and poignant to me. Terrifying and nightmare inducing, yes.
This ‘last’ show was implicitly letting us know. It’s nearly the end. Close the front door and come in for the night. The trimmings won’t protect you. Your barn conversion is lovely, but you are going to die. Big happy family? You as well. You had a meandering unsettled life? You too. There is no escape. It’s hide behind the sofa time.
It made clear that the ‘lucky boomers’ weren’t so lucky at all. The rich get rich and the poor stay relatively poor. It stamped all over the nostalgia of those happy days of student grants, pensions and cheap houses,. It didn’t look so pretty.
There was a whole thing about social class and gender bias. The girls were asked questions that boys weren’t. Those Financial Times-reading seven-year-olds finally got to say it was a reality TV show and they were cast as villains. No one seemed to notice that it was the director Michael Apted who was posher than the Queen. The director with his plum job in media, interviewing those poor souls about their meaningless lives was spoof-like.
But the whole thing about opportunities and caste systems was a distraction. The real message was that the trimmings of wealth won’t protect you. Maybe an extra couple of years. You get to climb a mountain or go on a cruise. The true sadness of the show wasn’t the system. It was showing people getting old and on two occasions, dying. And watching their lives go past in the blink of an eye was an existential alarm bell. Feel teary-eyed? No. Want to have a panic attack at this revelation? Hell, yes.
You could be pretty, you could be rich, you could be happy. All of the paraphernalia of life won’t protect you. We all get old and die.
Seeing these lives flash past and the other revelation was the absence of a time in the middle. Like climbing the stairs on the slide, you are either on your way up or down. There’s little time spent at the top enjoying the view. Watch 70Upand you will see lives slide away. That’s not poignant. That’s chilling.
But thanks 70 Up gang. I loved you all.
You can find 70 up on ITV X here.
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Image courtesy of ITV.
