7 Up TV Series Re-view Part 5 35 Up

Thinking back to when I was 35 – quite a feat of memory these days! – I am aware of a feeling of almost constant change. Family, friends, job and country all changed in and around that age, so I was ready to find that there were clear alterations amongst the participants. What did I actually see? Well, as the old saying has it, the more things change, the more they stay the same!

35 Up

Once again, we start with Tony, the most engaging and entertaining of the participants. Still every inch the East End boy, he reflects on a 7 years when he has continued to dabble in a variety of jobs. He is still a taxi driver and occasionally an extra in TV and films, including a Steven Spielberg film apparently, along with less than a year running a pub with a partner whose views differed from his own! The money is still coming in, as the scene at the stables where he owns two ponies for his daughters confirms, and he is clearly working very hard to get that money. His wife Debbie gets much more attention in this programme and comes across as a very strong character in her own right. This was part of the series trying to make up for the very unbalanced gender choices of the original with only four girls out of the original 14. Michael Apted is on record as saying that he regretted that short sighted approach and he concentrated, where possible, on the role of the spouses to even things up.

Nick has left the UK behind and made America his home. Still a university professor in Wisconsin, he gives every impression of being totally at ease with his life and career. The only fly in the ointment is the early stirrings of a reality TV backlash concerning his wife Jackie. Her comments in 28 Up were seen as a sign that the marriage was in trouble and she refused to take part in the series from then on. Presumably the press and letter writers were responsible, but one can only imagine the size of response there might have been had social media been around. I suppose it proves that we haven’t really been changed by the internet, merely amplified. Nick is the biggest success story, academically speaking, as he has continued to make progress in his field and has contributed to teaching a new generation. He appears to be the most content of the participants in their mid 30s, and his decision to leave the UK behind has been totally vindicated.

John reappears in 35 Up having given 28 Up a miss. His decision was to publicise the Bulgarian charities that he was involved in. He is a great-grandson of a former President of Bulgaria, and he had got involved in the charities having married the daughter of Sir Donald Logan who was the ambassador to Bulgaria. His appearances in the programme were focused on a UK based fundraiser and following him to Bulgaria when he went to a children’s home he was supporting. It’s a very good use of his time and it’s a very good use of the programme’s time as it gives a different perspective that balances the previous entitled posh kid portrayal. His former classmate Andrew is a successful solicitor and very happily married with two children. He considers the way that his two children enjoy playing together and regrets, in some ways, the fact that he was an only child and missed out on that.

Two of the participants have disproved to a large extent the central idea of the programme by leaving their earlier selves behind completely. Suzy is absolutely at ease with life at 35. Married with children and very much in love she has left behind the unhappy 14 year old and the chain smoking nervous 21 year old and blossomed into a very happy person. It’s lovely to see as she has been one of my favourite participants from the first programme. Similarly, Paul, the very subdued seven year old from a children’s home who moved to Melbourne with his family is a happily married father of four who has become more settled than many of the others in his life and his surroundings. It is interesting to consider whether his life would have been much less successful if his family had not emigrated. I think the likely answer is yes.

The three friends, Lynn, Jackie and Sue are all mothers and even more forthright than they were in earlier programmes. There is a certain world weariness about them reflecting their experiences of divorce, single parenthood and the loss of parents. One of the irritations seems to be the Up programme itself. Jackie appears to speak for most participants when she complains that she only considers her relative happiness when Michael Apted comes ‘nosing around’! It’s clear that as much as they perhaps don’t exactly welcome it, most participants feel a sense of obligation to the programme and perhaps see it as a necessary part of their lives.

Bruce and Neil are the most interesting participants this time, primarily because they have not yet settled down. Bruce is still a teacher in a primary school in London, but he also goes to Bangladesh where a number of his students’ families have come from. He seems driven to do something to offset the privilege he had as a child. At 35 he is still single and living in a flat in London but he does seem to be fulfilled in a way that perhaps some of the others are not. Neil, whose story shocked so many in 28 Up is now living in the Orkneys and has got into amateur dramatics having stayed in the same community for a few years. Despite all this he seems to be on the outside looking in with, perhaps, his mental health struggles making him difficult to connect with. For all that he seems more settled and slightly happier.

In a sense, the fact that many of the 35 year olds seem to be treading water to some extent reflects the fact that they are in their mid 30s where most of us settle down and life seems to lose its ability to surprise. Michael Apted himself regarded 35 Up as the most downbeat of the instalments, but it’s none the less a very interesting, reflective two hours.