7-49 Up (DVD)

The original Seven Up was broadcast in 1964 as a one-off World in Action special, featuring children who were selected from different backgrounds and social spheres to talk about their hopes and dreams for the future. As members of the generation who would be running the country by the year 2000, what did they think they would become? Inspired by World In Action founder editor Tim Hewat's passionate interest in both the Jesuit saying: "Give me the child until he is seven and I will show you the man," and the rigid class system of 1960s Britain, Seven Up set out to discover whether or not the children's lives were pre-determined by their background. The result is ground-breaking television - the very first example of a programme recording real people living real lives - and the follow-up films have won an array of awards. Director Michael Apted, who has since moved to Hollywood to direct films, has returned every seven years to chart the children's progress through life. Over the past five decades, the series has documented the group as they have become adults and entered middle-age, dealing with everything life has thrown at them in between.

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