Michael Apted

Ask Steve, five years into the NUFC takeover, what rating would you give these owners out of 10? What you, what would you improve going forward? Um, I'd, I'd give them a solid, a solid seven out of 10.

Um, I think where they lose marks for me is the revolving door that we've had with regards to, um, the CEOs and the sport directors.

I think those two things, um, have let what could have been a higher score down.

I think the, the eventual departure of Amanda and Miya Dad, which was inevitable and was always gonna happen, could have been done so differently.

The series actually started in 1964 with a group of 14 kids from a cross-section of English society, and every seven years since...

The director and behind the camera interview, Michael Apted, returned to see how these kids became feisty teenagers, then parents and eventually grandparents, how their marriages were made and unmade, how hope soared and was sometimes squashed.

So it really offers a front row seat to the daily dramas of life and how each of the participants was forged into the person that they became.

It's now 70 up.

The series actually started in 1964 with a group of 14 kids from a cross-section of English society, and every seven years since...

The director and behind the camera interview, Michael Apted, returned to see how these kids became feisty teenagers, then parents and eventually grandparents, how their marriages were made and unmade, how hope soared and was sometimes squashed.

So it really offers a front row seat to the daily dramas of life and how each of the participants was forged into the person that they became.

It's now 70 up.

And what was good about the second part is that it was really reckoning with what it meant to be part of it and trying to figure out what it all meant, if it meant anything at all.

And I really liked the way that it was picking fault with what Michael Apted had done and how it was edited and how he interviewed people and his own biases.

And it was talking about how all of these things impacted the lives of the people in the show.

So it was sort of a documentary eating its own tail in a way.

It sort

of turned the camera around.

Yeah, and I think as if Capadia, who stepped in as director for Michael Apted following his death, did an absolutely superb job.

And I think just the rich use of archive, you know, it's always been there in the Up series, but the way that he was able to weave that in, particularly in the last 15 minutes, that last 15 minutes of the whole film, I was a wreck.

that's so perfect I love hearing that those are two of my favourite films of yours and I did fall very much in love with both of those subjects Last month it was announced that you'll be directing the final instalment of the groundbreaking documentary series Seven Up.

Now the series was directed by the late filmmaker Michael Apted back in 1964 and followed a group of people from childhood to adulthood at seven year intervals.

How influential was that series to your own work and how does it feel to be responsible for the final chapter in this story?

It's a great honour.

R. Jackie and her friends.

Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man.

That is the rather iconic opening to Michael Apted's Seven Up from 1964.

There we go.