Interview with Michael Apted

Michael Apted was interviewed about his Seven Up! series at the NFT on Saturday 17 December 2005 by Jonathan Freedland.

We were delighted that Michael Apted was able to share with us his experience of filming this remarkable series. Now an established Hollywood director, he was a researcher (a key member of the production team) when Granada had the idea of filming a group of seven-year-old children from very different backgrounds for World in Action. The programme proved a huge success and when Granada followed up the subjects at seven-yearly intervals Apted was at the helm, directing all the subsequent programmes, including the latest update, 49 Up. Seven Up! and its successors have turned out to be a jewel in television's crown, a precious, emotionally resonant social document, and a concept since copied in other countries.

Veronica Taylor: Good evening ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the NFT and welcome to the final event in our ITV50 season. We started off with a bang with John Pilger on stage here and we couldn't have ended in a better way - as regards the on-stage part of this season - and have Michael Apted here; so two stalwarts of factual television, obviously in very different areas and working in very different ways. In case you're not clear about the running order this evening, I just thought I'd run through it for you. We're starting off with the original Seven Up!, which is screening in its entirety - that runs about 40 minutes. When it's over, Michael Apted and Jonathan Freedland will come to the stage. There'll be a little gap while our front of house people set up the stage furniture, so if you can just sit in your seats until then. Jonathan and Michael will talk for around about an hour. There'll be more clips interspersed in that conversation from 49 Up. And then Jonathan will open up the session to questions from you, the audience. And I think my front-of-house colleagues will have roving mics, which they will hand you if you want to ask a question. So that's the running order. As I say, we're absolutely thrilled to have this event. There are still more screenings to come in our ITV50 season but this is our last time with guests on stage. So enjoy the film and I'll be back later and ask you to welcome our guests. Thank you.

[screening]

Jonathan Freedland: Well, thank you very much for that warm welcome. And thanks hugely to you, Michael Apted, for coming here to do this. I know a lot of people in this room are huge fans and followers of this series, this extraordinary television documentary that we're going to be talking about. But just before, while they were setting up here, I asked you how long it's been since you've actually seen that as a whole programme, rather than just sort of culling it for pictures when making future programmes, and you said a long while.

Michael Apted: Yes, probably over 30 years because, you know, now when I start a new one I look at the old ones and you know which part is part of folk law, which are the indispensable pieces. But just to see it all the way through without having to think 'where do I put this bit and that bit?' and I'd forgotten about what's major...

JF: Well, I'm going to get onto what's major in a moment. But the... what effect does it have on you, watching it as a whole programme?

MA: Well, it drives me crazy, because I just want to know what happened to them. I know what's happened to them. When he says 'I want to get married' or 'I don't want to get married, I'll be a missionary.' I say 'I know. I know, I know.' So it's very frustrating just to sit there. I mean... I swear I'm a speed freak so I just want to get on with 56 Up or whatever.

JF: Because the... well, we're going to talk about that definitely too... the effect that I think it has on those of us who've watched this closely is extremely emotional, even watching that first programme. It's very moving because we know what happens. So there's an extra poignancy to a lot of these remarks. Because we know where this all goes. What was the impact of the film when it came out, when no one knew all of that? We didn't have all of that future. Just as a film on its own, what effect did it have?

MA: It had a huge effect. I mean you have to look at the time in which it was made, '64, you know, when there were all these questions about whether English society was going through serious volcanic changes with the Wilson government and the cultural revolution as it were, you know, with The Beatles, The Stones, Mary Quant and all that. And what Granada did - Granada was a very left-wing, radical company... Tim Hewat who ran World in Action... which was just entering its second or third year - had this notion of where is England going? Is this really true, is this social fabric changing? Or is it just cosmetic?

So then, I remember he said to us 'how to do it, fellows' he said 'put a camera on the roof of Golden Square' - where Granada was, the London branch - 'put 20 kids in the Square, say, four step forward.' These four will make it and the other sixteen won't. Anyway, that was the germ of the idea and of course... you know this was early days of sociology and whatever, especially on television. And so the fact that it was very ingenuous... and even now as you watch it, it creeps up on you - you think 'this is a bit lame' when I watched the first five or ten minutes of this tonight - and then it begins to get to you. You begin to see the resonance of the thing. And that's what was so powerful about it and that was the impact that it had. You know, it really did show that things maybe were not as rosy as we thought they might be.

JF: The way I want to do this, this evening, is to talk a little bit about three areas really, and then we're going to open it out and hopefully there'll be lots of questions. And first of all, I thought we would just begin really, by talking about it as television, with the bfi's marking and the NFT are marking 50 years of ITV. You just mentioned there, with Granada being left-wing, is it significant that this film - which a lot of people, I have to say myself included, believe is more-or-less the best thing that's ever been on television and it certainly won a vote recently as the most outstanding documentary ever made - was not on the BBC? Is that significant or coincidental?

MA: It's completely significant. When I joined Granada - which, you don't want to start crying about these things, but Granada was a very, very hot place to be, it was my good fortune to be there at that time - the BBC was firmly asleep. After ITV started and kind of vulgarised, if you want, and then found its feet and hired a lot of very interesting people - and the BBC slept on - and really it wasn't until the middle 60s with Huw Wheldon and Jimmy MacTaggart and Play for Today and all these sort of things, that the BBC woke up again. So the BBC was still rooted in Panorama, God bless its heart and all that, but it had a very clear view of the world, a very patrician view of the world, with Richard Dimbleby. But what Hewat did at World in Action was kind of blow a fart across the whole system. Much as the way that Osborne had done with Look Back in Anger [1959]. And so it was absolutely... this would not possibly have been on the BBC at that time, they would never have thought like this.

JF: Is this partly because it really did have - and I think it's very clear watching it - a very polemical purpose? I mean there was an agenda, unapologetically this was making a point about class. The BBC wouldn't have been open to that.

MA: A very clear agenda which has kind of haunted me ever since. Because I think it would never have been made without the agenda. But you kind of... when I was sent out to find these children - I mean I was the researcher, humble researcher - I was just existing on the margins of society because Granada very clearly wanted to prove the point that the social inequalities were alive... were rampant. So I was sent to the very rich schools and the very poor schools in London. And another guy, Gordon McDougal, went up to Liverpool and found a kid in a children's home... but there's a very clear agenda. And now looking back on it, of course that agenda was very disappointing. Because I think what happened with Neil and what happened with Peter there - although Peter dropped out after 28 - what happened to the middle-class was much more interesting than what happened to the very rich or the very un-empowered...

JF: And in a way the story of the next 40 years in Britain was to be the story of this hugely expanding middle class.

MA: Yes.

JF: And you haven't built that into your original conception.

MA: Oh no... you know... look at the balance between men and women as well. So, the fact that it was clearly loaded from the very beginning was fun at the time and also gave the whole series a foundation... it gave it a hard edge and then we grew through that, we grew out of that.

JF: Well, what about the... obviously the defining feature of it is the updates every seven years and finding out. But that wasn't part of the original plan.

MA: Not at all, no. It was only ever going to be one film and, in fact, looking at it now - because it kind of screams at you, doesn't it, what happened to them - it wasn't until... that was '64, not until 1970, when I was sat in the Granada canteen and Denis Forman, who was running Granada then, just came up to me and said 'why don't we go back and see what had happened to them?' And I thought 'oh, alright.' But it wasn't 'my God, what a brilliant idea!' So it's kind of amazing that we didn't think of it earlier but it took six years to get the simple notion of 'why don't we just follow them up?' And then Seven Plus Seven was a nightmare. It was kind of spotty, monosyllabic and all that but - very difficult to make and embarrassing to do - but then you could see the beginnings of a powerful idea and then, I think from then on, it was frankly down to whether Granada and I would hang in with it. And they did. And I did.

JF: A key thing now, that people who... the Michael Apteds of 2005 - a would-be researcher for one of these independent production companies - are often asked to make films where you have to choose members of the public...

MA: Yes, right...

JF: ...and they would say... what we now understand they would choose... they're looking for characters, people who will perform, maybe even do quite extreme things...

MA: Yes.

JF: We know about the class balance, but how did you go about choosing them? Were you thinking, for example Tony... were you thinking, 'well, that's just a natural television personality there, we've just got to have him on.'

MA: Yeah, a bit. A bit. It was all done... you have to understand it was all done in three weeks. They said 'go out, find these children.' And so I was totally at the mercy of the education areas - whether they'd co-operate - the schools - whether they would co-operate - and the teachers. So I would just... when I got down to the teachers, I'd say 'show me your finest. Show me your finest seven-year-olds' and very quickly... but people like Tony did leap out at you. And of course some were in groups. Because maybe someone didn't leap out so we thought we'd put them in groups. And there was the entertainment value... the interplay between a trio, which is clear. But I suppose... obviously I remember that we filmed a lot more than ended up in the film. And then I dropped some for Seven Plus Seven . But it was clearly, as in any documentary... either it made sense or anybody... I suppose you want people who don't collapse in front of the camera... who can go through the ordeal of being pointed at... that's what I was looking for with these seven-year-olds.

JF: We're about to look at a piece from the most recent film, 49 Up, and it's going to be the piece that looks at the life of Tony. So... but before we look at it... one of the things that was... that you said when you were interviewed in the lead-up to 49 Up was that the thing that had happened between 42 Up and 49 Up was reality television.

MA: Yes.

JF: That was the big change. And that in some ways you were wary, worried that the participants would feel that they were on a glorified kind of Big Brother show. Did it play for your advantage or disadvantage, the fact that this genre had arisen?

MA: I think it played to my disadvantage and I didn't really realise it until we started and then I began to get a strong sense, maybe not just for that reason, but people were very sensitive. The subjects and the contributors were very sensitive about being in the film, even if they were willing to be in the film. Largely, and for all sorts of reasons, some good, some bad. Some of them wanted a lot of money to be in it. Because you make of money doing reality but... and others you know...

JF: And you don't pay them money?

MA: I do pay them money, yes. I mean, not the kind of money you earn on whatever it is... but I do pay. I've paid them money since 28 Up. Not a lot of money, but money and pay them all the same amount of money. But I think what occurred to me as I was doing it... there was a real sensitivity that I was exploiting them. Which I suppose they've always thought, all the way through, but now it was much more vivid. Which led me into some difficult times with them.

JF: All right, well as I said, we're going to look at a bit. This person we've been talking about is somebody any producer of any kind of documentary or reality programme would immediately want as a tremendous character and somebody that... you felt it actually immediately he appeared on screen in the Seven Up!... a great amount of affection for Tony. So let's have a look at the segment from 49 Up about him.

[clip]

JF: A huge amount you could say about that, just even that small segment. But let's just go with the stuff that Tony was talking about at the end there, about how the East End had changed and how he'd in a way re-created Petticoat Lane and that whole world in Spain. There is something in there in... all through the films, isn't there... that does seem to be almost a document... social document of how Britain has changed. And that story about race, really - which is what's being touched on there - you missed that, didn't you, really, in the first film but you sort of caught up somehow.

MA: I mean, what's interesting about it, it is the history of England. I've always avoided being very specifically political, actually talking about political events of the time because somehow it seems to date it. But what you point to is... through Tony's life you're telling a part of British history, of social history. And I think that's kind of what's powerful about it. It's telling the history of the country through character, through people and not through ideas, not through polemic, not through whatever. But it's actually... their lives stand for a lot of political ideas and all sorts of ideas, alcoholism, bringing up kids, whatever. They're all dealt with, but in a very personal, intimate way. And no one ever makes a philosophical statement about it or a political statement. That's as near a political statement as you'll get, but again it's through the dynamic of Tony's life. So although I don't deal directly with politics and I don't say 'what do you think of Princess Diana dying?' etc., etc., the politics emerges out of it.

JF: One thing that you immediately pick up is the contrast between the politics that you imagined in the first film, when you said the 'Executive and the Shop Steward of 2000', as if those were the big poles that would matter... and yet actually even the term Shop Steward now rings very datedly.

MA: Yes.

JF: This thing about the middle-class... you did choose two people in Liverpool, Peter and Neil, as your middle-class representatives... but do you feel that was a mistake that you had just two of them, that you did have so few women for example?

MA: Oh yes.

JF: And is that... has that impaired the ability of the series to be this social document? Or is it...

MA: Well, I think it's impaired it a bit because... I mean Peter dropped out but he's had a fantastically interesting life. I mean not in terms of melodrama but in terms of how his values have changed and what he went through. And of course Neil is in some ways the emotional core of the whole thing. And so, yes, it is impaired. But on the other hand, all of them, all twelve of them who are left, all leap out at you, leap out at the screen. And so they've all become very accessible and appealing characters. So, although maybe it isn't as politically balanced as I would have liked, I still think I was lucky with the people I chose. Because most of them hung in, which is a huge, I think, act of courage, to hang in. And really all of them are memorable. I mean all of them... you know all of them, which says something about the power of their personality.

JF: When the new one was coming and I had seen a tape in advance, colleagues of mine were constantly saying 'well, what happened to Suzy and Jackie', as if they knew these people. Even though they hadn't been on television for seven years, everyone immediately knew them by name. What about the thesis - because we were just talking about the social dimension of it - what about this thesis that World in Action was advancing, in a way, that your class would dictate what your... would determine your future in your later life... 40 years on - plus actually - do you think... has the programme borne that starting thesis out or not?

MA: I think it's been borne it out but I have to be very careful. I think it's borne it out largely for people who are born at that time. This is a film about people who were born in 1956. I mean, I think if I had started the film seven years, fourteen years later it would have been quite different. And for me the only real abiding generality, I think, is... and you look at... what's interesting to see... Seven Up! is... there's something about that core personality at seven that really never changes. Whatever curveballs that people are thrown at and however life treats them, whatever cards they get dealt, there's something about that inner personality that doesn't change. And what's interesting...

JF: In other words the Jesuit saying... he's right, in a way, that you give the child... at seven is the man.

MA: Yes, it's so interesting, you look at... we'll see Neil in a bit, but you see that Neil, as he's kind of restored himself, looks more 'seven' than he has for a long time. [laughter]

JF: And this business about 'did it prove right or not?' I mean, one thing... it's not obvious from the films but, for example, this business about university and it's incredibly loaded there, where you have one child saying 'what does university mean?' Whereas others know the actual Cambridge College they're going to at age seven, which is pretty remarkable. But it turns out, as I understand it, that none of the, if you like, working-class characters here did send a child to university, with the exception of Paul, who went to Australia. And that does...

MA: Yes, Paul, who said 'what's university?' He's the only one of all of the working-class who sent his child to... who got a place in a college, yes.

JF: That does feel like an indictment of Britain. The one person who was able to be mobile, if you like, for the next generation, had to leave. But for the rest, they actually, more-or-less, did stay, at least... they stayed in a box...

MA: I think it's true... I think you look at that film and people have stayed in boxes. But I only make a reservation that that's of that period of time, life has changed, things have got different. I don't think if you made this film now, that it would have any of the same kind of resonance. It would have a different kind of resonance. I don't know what that would be but... so I never... especially when I show this film abroad, I don't want people to think 'well, this is England, this is how England is.' England's changed a lot. And the film changed a lot. The film stopped being political, in my mind. And I always tell the story that I never realised it until I took the film to America to show it to people, thinking that they wouldn't understand it. And I didn't want to show it to them because I didn't want this precious thing to me to be misunderstood. Because how would an American know about the English class system or the linguistics of school, of comprehensive school, public school, private school and all this. But they did get it. It plays everywhere well in the rest of the world. Which led me to believe I'm not making a film so much about English social structure, I'm making a film about people growing up, getting older, dealing with everything that people all over the world have to deal with.

JF: Yes, it became a human drama rather than a sociological text.

MS: Yes and I never realised it. It sort of crept up on me.

JF: Well, that's definitely where our conversation's going to move next. Before we get there though I want to, if we can, play the encounter with Jackie, who does raise some of these questions, actually, directly with you in the bit we're going to see... specifically, the point I was just discussing with you, which is the presumption that lives would be determined. And perhaps we'll just take a look at that, this is again from the 49 Up film.

[clip]

MA: Well, yeah. She has a lot of points. [laughter] It's pretty scary to look at it. No, she has a lot of points about my... me projecting myself onto it and the things that I live by, projecting them onto them. Obviously she has points about editing and whatever. I always like having arguments with documentarians who say 'well, there's something pure about the documentary as opposed to the theatrical.' And I say 'rubbish!' A documentary can be as judgemental, as contrived as anything. No, she has a lot of points, I think, there that are fair, and I thought it was interesting to air it out. And it was interesting to try and edit the film, because once I got into that I could never leave it. I couldn't then go back and start discussing other things. So I had to tell her life story in the terms of this interview that she and I were having.

JF: You said perhaps she has got a point that you projected things of your own onto her story... that might have been...

MA: Yes, I was very aware of that but I tried to... I became aware of it early on at around 28, when I realised that I was kind of projecting my values of success and failure and happiness and whatever onto other people and it's difficult not to and you can't really not to. But you have to guard yourself against what you wish for and what other people wish for. And I do try... I think what's interesting for me about the films is they're all different. They have a completely different tone, each single one. And I think one of the reasons is that I truly try to clear my mind and not anticipate or wish what happens to them, but have them tell the story each seven years. I don't find out much about them before I do it. I try and make the interview an adventure for both of us and I'm finding out about them. Just so I don't project what I think should happen onto what has happened. So if I can manage to do that, which is almost impossible - but at least I'm aware of it and try and do it - then I think they can tell their stories and I can then, as it were, do a graph of their life, as it's happening, and not how I think their life should be.

JF: The films are, even in these small snatches, almost unaccountably moving. Something about seeing people age before you. A child turning into an adult with all the texture of life etc. But is there something in that story, perhaps in others as well, where you invite a kind of sadness or even, maybe, pity for... particularly Jackie thinks it's for her, but I get... I thought in her question she was saying the three of them really, Lynn, Sue and Jackie and maybe... we'll come onto Neil later on, actually in a moment. But is there something... is that part of the manipulation that's going on that you're, as you said just before, aware of?

MA: I don't think so. If you look at Sue, who she's talking about, I mean that's a very, very happy life, a contented life. You know, it might not be my idea of a contented life but it's Sue's idea. I'm very anxious to make the interviews as emotional as I can, to try and go as deep as possible. A lot of them have lines in the sand where they just won't want to discuss stuff and... you know. And Jackie is not quite correct because they do all have great power over me, because they can say 'you can't use that.' And if you're doing longitudinal documentaries you have to behave yourself because you want to go back. And a couple of them demand to see the rough cut and give me notes on it... I have no...

JF: Which you then follow up?

MA: Yes, well I'll argue it with them but if they say 'no, you can't use that' then there's nothing I can do about it. So it's not quite as Machiavellian as it seems. But I do try and create emotion, I do know where to press the buttons, which is true. Whether that's to make it sad and depressing, I don't know. I hope not, but I do try to go as deep as they'll let me. And because we have such a relationship, which changes over the years... as... you know, I'm fifteen years older than them or fifteen years when you're fourteen is like the moon, but now we're much, much closer and we're colleagues now and it's interesting to see how the relationship with me changes. And I think the interviews have got better because I'm talking to colleagues and I'm not talking down to people. I'm talking to people of my own generation in a sense.

JF: Have you bonded with some of the participants more than with others?

MA: Oh, yes. It's like a - this will make you throw up - but it is like a family. Some you get on with well, some don't like me, some I'm awkward with, some I see a lot of, some I never hear anything from.

JF: I read somewhere that Bruce and Nick, in particular, you have a good connection with. Is that right?

MA: Yes, it is. Particularly with Nick, not because I like Nick...

JF: Because... the boy wanted to go to the moon. From the Yorkshire Dales.

MA: Yes. I mean, when I talk to Nick, I'm talking to myself in a way because what he did when he was in his late 20s, he moved to America, which is what I've done. And it's interesting to compare how he's coped with that, coping with leaving your roots behind you and trying to build a life in an alien culture. So, I'm close to that, not because, as I said, I like him any better or less than anybody else, but I feel I'm talking to myself when I'm talking to him.

JF: And what about Bruce who was the would-be missionary that we saw in the film?

MA: Yes, no, he supports West Ham United, so that's a good start. [laughter] Tony's here, I think, unless he's left the premises. Tony's still here. So I do see a lot more of some than others and, you know, I mean I love them all and what people will say is 'well, you haven't had to deal with death yet.' And of course that's unthinkable. I mean it is, I can hardly talk about it. I just hope that I'm the first to go. But the thought of having to cope with that is just unimaginable. For me, it's like losing a child, I suppose.

JF: These lives are all played out before us. And in a way, it's interesting you mention your own deep involvement, because you are obviously off-screen. No one ever sees you. We hear your voice. In some way the only life that isn't laid bare is yours. And you say you're colleagues, you're equals, but... have you... is there a way through that? Have you thought of changing that in any way?

MA: No, I think I set a style for it, which you know, I'll live with. I know it can be annoying to people but so be it. I mean I'll do it if The Daily Mail shows up and says 'let's see pictures of you at seven...' I mean I have to do whatever I'm asking them to do. It's incredibly annoying but I have to do it. But I don't think I'll ever visually invade the film. I know it can be a bit irritating to hear this voice babbling on and not knowing who it is, but I would hate to change the style. Every seven years when I do it there's a new management at Granada. All have brilliant ideas about how it could be better. Not that I know any more than they do but I do know what this is and I do know what this brand is. And this time, a delightful man called Bill Jones was on my case about using music all the time. 'You've got to put music in, you've got to use a score' and all this because this is what documentaries are doing. But what I've managed to preserve - and I'm not a dinosaur but I think there's a certain purity about this - which I've sustained over the years and through many, many different styles of documentary filmmaking and whatever.

JF: What about the... I think it's two, if we go by the last film, who did drop out, who refused to go along with it. Can you tell us why they did and if you sympathise with their decision?

MA: Well, I sympathise with Peter very much. He was incredibly interesting at 28... he was a school teacher...

JF: He was the boy at Liverpool alongside Neil that we saw. Blond boy.

MA: He was very... he was part of that middle-class that had done everything they were told. Who had gone to school, gone to university, got degrees and then under Mrs Thatcher, God bless her, there were no jobs. So she kind of mangled the social services and whatever and he was really violent about her. And then he woke up the next morning and there was... full of the press saying 'who does he think he is? How dare he be teaching our children.' I think he said 'wait a minute, I've had enough of this.' And he never came back. And I do have quite a good relationship with him.

JF: Do you ask him to come back each film?

MA: Yes, but I keep a relationship, irrespective of all that - I mean just hoping one day he might change his mind and we get on very well. Charles is incomprehensible to me. Because Charles became a documentary filmmaker and [laughter] although he lives by it, won't die by the sword. So I can't penetrate that.

JF: Do you still raise the argument with him?

MA: Oh yes. But I mean this time he tried to sue me to get himself removed in all generations from the film. And Granada told him to... sod off.

JF: And your feeling, presumably, is that he does this to other people but only as a one-off.

MA: Yes.

JF: What about the impact - maybe he's an exception or he may actually be proof of what I'm saying - that this has had on their lives. I mean, the uncertainty principle that says by observing something you change it. Have their lives changed by being under your lens for this length of time.

MA: Well, I ask them. I mean at 42 I went round them all and you got all sorts of different responses by saying 'this is a great document for my life' and others saying 'it's a poison pill, a pain in the arse and I would never have my children do it' and some say 'yes, it's quite fun.' I don't know what damage I've done, there must be some, it must be a nightmare to have your life put up for public scrutiny, not just here but all over the world and having to answer these questions. But they're adult, I bribe them, I morally blackmail them to do it, but at the end of the day they don't have to show up. I think there's a sense of bonding between us and we realise we're onto something here and why not keep it going? But I don't think any of them will be traumatised by it and only one relationship was formed because of the film between Bruce and Neil, which was manifest in 42. But I don't think they found partners or got jobs or... but I mean I can't speak to the kind of damage that goes on because of this.

JF: You said - and I think everyone who's seen this would agree with you - that it's shed, in a way, the over... the politics of the early films. It became this much more... larger essay, really, about human nature and about what life is like. We would be able to distil very clearly what the first film was saying about class... Are there things you can draw that this is really saying about the human experience that 49 Up and the later films are saying?

MA: Well, no, not on a seven by seven by seven.

JF: No, but as a token taken as a whole?

MA: No, I don't think so. I mean, for example, 35 was very morbid. A lot of them were losing their parents. 42 seemed, I thought, quite promising. People had sort of settled into early middle-age and were happy with their lot. Now there's a kind of reflection...a very reflective and slightly angry quality to 49. And it's interesting to see what different generations... people grow up. Some grew up very young. Some people like Bruce took a long time to grow up. I don't think you can make generic comments about it but it's just interesting to see twelve lives played out in all their variety and all their unpredictability.

JF: Because I was wondering if... it's something that Bruce says in the most recent film where he says 'we all let go of our dreams.'

MA: Yes.

JF: And that seemed to say something very, very large about life, but also about the film. Which is that you do have Tony wanting to be a jockey when he grows up, and people talking about astronauts and going to the moon and being movie stars. And in the end their lives are different from that, but the way Bruce said it was not bitter. It was just a realisation that we live these lives rather than the lives of our seven-year-old imagination. That seemed to be...

MA: But who knows. At 56 things may be different. They'll have grandchildren, some of them, and maybe... there is maybe a slight feeling that life is over at 49 and that can't be right, can it? God forbid that's right. So, you know, maybe there are dreams to come. Maybe at that point Bruce is feeling that. But it's always changing. It's a mother lode of platitudes that life always changes. But this dramatises that.

JF: You've described it as the emotional core, in a way, of the film and that is the story of Neil. And I think it wouldn't be complete without taking a look at that and there'll be some closing questions about that before we widen it out. So let's just take a look at the segment from the most recent film about Neil.

[clip]

JF: Has it helped or hurt Neil, do you think, to have his story told that way?

MA: I think it's helped him. It's given him a platform. And he's a wonderful interviewee and he comes out with wonderful stuff and I think it's enriched his life. He never sees the films and we have to protect him, as we protect all of them, from the public - I say that in the kindest way. We try and keep them as anonymous as we can and intercept stuff and mail and all this sort of stuff.

JF: He's never seen them, did you say?

MA: No, he never watches it, no.

JF: Why's that, do you think?

MA: I don't know, he don't think he fancies the idea of it at all. But I think he really does, he's one of the people, I think, like Tony, that really actually enjoys doing it.

JF: Good. There's more to ask but I want to widen it out as I promised I would, so let's hear what questions we have, or thoughts for Michael Apted. The gentleman there... I think we do have a microphone so perhaps if you wait it may get to you, here it is, somebody's bringing it to you right now.

Audience Member: Thanks very much. Michael, you touched upon earlier the impact that reality TV had on your participants. I'm curious to know what you think about the phenomenon of reality TV in general and its impact on audiences and television.

MA: Well, when I'm asked that question I usually tell the audience what they want to hear. My feeling is that... I loathe it, but on the other hand it can be very entertaining and can be, if it's good, illuminating. And I say... I've been accused of being the grandfather of reality television, but it seems to me the essence of reality television, whether you like it or not, is that you contrive situations and put people in these situations and see how they respond, and maybe that can be highly illuminating. I don't contrive it. I mean I have only once, in all the 42 years I've been doing this, once shot a piece of film outside that seven-year window.

So I take my best chances on that seventh year, maybe nothing's happening to the subjects at that time, maybe they're going through some exciting moments. I mean when I was at 35, Bruce took me to Bangladesh. But I don't follow them, I don't film them between those seven years. So I try, as accurately as I can, to get a portrait of them at that period, whether it's... this time it was April of 2005. I get that moment in their life and project it as honestly as I can. I don't contrive anything. I don't have them do stuff they wouldn't normally be doing even if what they're doing would appear to be boring. But I think now I've got beyond the stage... I don't think anything these people do is boring now, it's just illuminating. So I like to think there's nothing contrived in what I do, whereas I think reality television at its heart is about contrivance.

JF: Do you think it's tainted the idea of observational television?

MA: I worry about it, because I think reality television will go down the toilet at some point in the not too distant future and I'm worried that the whole documentary film will go with it. It will all be tarred with the same brush.

JF: There's a question a couple of rows back. And if there are others, perhaps raise hands and I know who's coming. There's one here and there's one there, that's good, so I can come to you quickly. Yes.

Audience Member: Thanks. I just wanted to ask about the extent of your involvement with the other 7 Up series. I saw it the other week when the 21 Upin Russia was on ITV and you were listed as a consultant. I don't know whether they're going back to the groups of children in America and South Africa and I don't know if you're involved with the BBC series where they started again with another group of seven-year-olds in 2000, I think it was.

MA: Well, sort of, I am. Though I'm... we are doing 21 Up in America, they've started shooting now so I'm a little bit involved in that. With the Russian one, all I do is just watch it and give them any help and it's... unfortunately it's very, very difficult to get these films made. Not mine. And the only way that we get the Russian and American ones financed is because we say to companies 'you can't have 49 Up'... we say to Granada 'you can't have 49 Up unless you do all of them.' And it's kind of wicked. I mean, the South African one is fantastic and we still can't get the money to make it. I'm not involved in the making of it but I'm very much involved in the politics of the franchise.

JF: What about that BBC one, 7 Up 2000?

MA: Well, that was still a Granada programme. 42 Up was on BBC because ITV decided they didn't want to buy all three programmes, the British, the American and the Russian. So ITV sold it to BBC, which was a catastrophic mistake for them, but then this time round the BBC started querying whether they wanted the Russian or the American ones so ITV snapped it up. But the BBC started one through Granada called 7 Up 2000, and as far as I know, they'll do the next one in 2007.

JF: Are you happy about that or do you worry again, it dilutes the...

MA: Well, I don't care, I don't think it does dilute it. I'm flattered, in fact. I think imitation is flattery and I don't think... I'm so far ahead of the game that I think I'm... mine's on a slightly different level from the ones behind me. But they're very good. The Russian one is breathtaking because they chose the children serendipitously at the exact moment the Soviet Empire was collapsing. So that is an astonishing political, historical document. And so I'm thrilled with the whole thing. And so no, it doesn't annoy me at all.

JF: And there was a woman here and then there was a gentleman, I think, there, so we'll just go to the one here and then we'll go to you.

Audience Member: Hi, I'm... is that working?

JF: Yes.

Audience Member: You mentioned what you've tried to keep the same in the format over the years. I was interested in what you've changed and how your interviewing style has changed, partly depending on the trends in television and documentary-making of the time.

MA: Well, it hasn't... it changes by the different dynamic between them and myself. It's much easier to talk to someone who's nearer your own age. I think the point that I was making, that there's such a cultural divide in the fifteen years between us at certain ages that, you know, they just didn't trust me or I didn't know how to speak to them, I just think my technique for interviewing, such as it is, is just more interplay now because I can... you know, we're more interesting to each other. So I haven't consciously preserved a style but I have kept, as what I say, the kind of... the purity of the filmmaking. I realised very early on - and I think I was lucky - that the key thing was going to be this shot. That was what was going to be essential... if this was going to go on and on and on... it's a very square way of making a documentary.

But in this film nothing is more powerful than those cuts between those generations of just the face. A documentarian now would probably freak out at the amount of static, sit-down, full-square interviewing I do. But that's become the language of the film. And I think it's paid off. Other films... the Russian one is much more free-flowing, much more imaginatively made than mine. But then I worry when they've got six generations of stuff to handle, how they're going to do it. There's a short-hand which I got on to quickly and fortuitously, that... that's why I fight to keep the style because I've got seven generations of them now and maybe it will go on - that's a colossal amount of footage and a hugely complicated story to tell...

JF: You mean you can cut between the faces of 14, 21, 28, very quickly and see the ageing before your eyes.

MA: Exactly. I knew that was always going to be the story. I worried that once that became less dramatic the films would become boring. Because there's not that much difference between 35 and 42; there's a huge difference between 21 and 28. But no, it doesn't get more boring. People still like it, still are moved by it because they now can track the emotional life. But it is a kind of simple style of filmmaking that I think helps me tell the story.

JF: Thank you, and there's a question here. I think this might be our last one. We might be able to squeeze one more in. Yes.

Audience Member: Can I just say first, I've never seen any of this material before.

JF: Oh, really?

Audience Member: Wonderful really. One of the great things about it is there's no music. One thing I hate about television... all the superfluous music.

MA: With you.

Audience Member: Hope you'll be able to resist any...

MA: Well, I resisted it this time and I will continue to resist it.

Audience Member: Good. My question is how do you see this work in the context of your career as a whole? Does it impinge at all on your feature-film work?

MA: Well, I don't let it. I think this is the most important thing I've ever been associated with. It's the most original work that I've been part of and I think that this is the stuff that I will be remembered by. And I've always carved out time. I've lived in America for 20-odd years, so since 35 Up - even earlier - I've lived in America but I've always carved out time in my American career to come and do this because I think this is a precious thing and important to me, and gives me a kind of brand, if you want, and helps me get other jobs frankly. It's something that's... whenever I'm on the road with a film, with a movie, this always comes up. And it's never vice versa. When I'm on about the 'Up' films no one asks me about the movies. So I just preserve this as a most valued part of my professional life.

JF: And even though you've made Gorillas in the Mist [1988] and the biggest-grossing Bond movie, nothing as dramatic as this, either.

MA: No, I think not. This, to me this is the drama of ordinary life, which is why it's so popular, why it's so accessible, why people identify with it more than anything I've ever done and probably more than most programmes, because it's not melodrama and it's the real stuff. And people identify with it.

JF: Let's just squeeze in one last question. There's two hands going up. If you both make them very quickly in consecutive order, we'll squeeze them both in and then we're going to conclude.

Audience Member: I've taught this to students, most of whom were working-class and they had quite a few objections to the representation... some of the representations. But another question is really uppermost in my mind. I never realised that there were only two middle-class people in and so few females. Would you like... could you say some more about that?

JF: Okay, there's one question and the other one was the gentleman there and if we could just take them both together and you could hit them in one go, if you can. Are there any others? There is another hand there. Okay, we'll see if we can get them all in. Go on. If you do it briefly then we've got a chance of...

Audience Member: I wanted to ask, you talked that this might be the thing that you're remembered for, would be the thing that you'd like to be remembered for, what I'd like to know is what is going to happen? What is the future? Where will it end? Or will it end? Obviously it will end but how that... what that will look like for us.

JF: Very good. And let's squeeze in that last voice at the back there, maybe you might even try shouting, oh no, you've got a mic there, very good. Yes.

Audience Member: You've resisted doing contrived things like reunions but you did bring the two boys from the children's home together for 49 Up. I was just wondering how that came about and have you been tempted to do any more of it with the other children who were together as children?

JF: Can we take that one first.

MA: Take that one first. Well, I do it, I mean I do... the girls I do bring together. For a short interview it's very unproductive because they really don't have very much in common and it's more just a stunt I do just to get that frieze shot over the generations - I used less than a minute of it. It's something that... really the reason I brought Simon and Paul together, Simon that... Paul who lives in Australia made it part of his deal. He wanted to go back to England, he wanted... he would only do it if I took him back to England. He wanted to see his family there and so... since he was going I decided to bring him and Simon together. So...

JF: They say actors are difficult...

MA: Well, this lot drive me crazy, totally. Going to yours, I suppose it will... I always thought it would... I would stop it when enough of them didn't want to do it, it would become embarrassing for me to try and explain or that I dropped dead. And it's interesting in this one I've got... although they were very difficult to deal with and difficult to get to do it, I felt they were all more proud of this one than they have ever been of any others. They've always been somewhat grudging - not Tony or anything - but a lot of them have always been rather grudging about it. But this time they were ringing us up saying 'what are the ratings?' and all this kind of stuff, which was the...

And with yours, I think the choice, as I said, was sort of determined by the times and determined by the patrons. The patrons wanted a vivid social document and middle ground isn't vivid. And that was a big mistake. But I can't blame anybody for it. And women... I hate to say this, in this day and age, but in 1964 if you'd said that a woman would be Prime Minister in twelve years time, people would have thought you were barking mad. I mean the role of women in society in the early 60s in England was shocking. And it's one of the biggest revolutions of my lifetime. But it's amazing how quickly it's happened, and if you put yourself back when this film was first made, the attitudes towards women were shocking. And that... the choice of people in this film reflected that.

JF: And following up what our man there asked, health permitting, 77 Up? 84 Up?

MA: Boy, that would be something wouldn't it? God Almighty, I'd be over 100! [laughter]

JF: We're optimistic for you because we want... we certainly... everyone here I'm sure would agree we all want to see it, and we're hugely grateful to you, Michael Apted.

[applause]

MA: Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you all for your generosity and warmth and for showing up and, Jonathan, thank you for doing this for me. I appreciate it.

JF: It's been an absolute pleasure, thank you very much.

[applause]