{"id":1807,"date":"2012-05-22T16:12:49","date_gmt":"2012-05-22T15:12:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=1807"},"modified":"2012-05-22T16:12:49","modified_gmt":"2012-05-22T15:12:49","slug":"56-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2012\/05\/22\/56-up\/","title":{"rendered":"56 Up"},"content":{"rendered":"

I viewed the first two episodes of Michael Apted's\u00a056 Up<\/a> with nervous anticipation of a wonderful TV venture \u2013 one I have been watching since the late 1970s when the early programmes were used on Bath's pre-service teacher education PGCE as an illustration of the link between class and disadvantage and the struggle to escape them.<\/p>\n

In those early shows [ 7 \/ 14 \/ 21 Up ] explorations of class and disadvantage (and advantage) were not hard to find; \u00a0indeed it sometimes seemed that the children had been identified with that in mind \u2013 and I'd be surprised if that wasn't the case to some degree. \u00a0Much, but not all, of it was harrowing \u2013 but that was in the editing, of course, which skilfully blended hope with despair, those two sides of life's mintage.<\/p>\n

I watched the first episode of 56 Up with particular nervousness because I feared that modern ITV would bugger it up, bringing 21 century reality TV values to bear, but, not so, though they do describe it as \"entertainment\", I note, on their web pages. \u00a0Still harrowing in parts, though, but that's mostly the flashbacks.<\/p>\n

In recent years, if you're my age, watching these programmes\u00a0has been a bit like looking at a reflection of your own life.\u00a0 The early programmes began with an intonation of the alleged Jesuit maxim: Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man<\/em>, and it seemed clear that the programmes were testing out that idea \u2013 and maybe still are.<\/p>\n

Well; not proven, I'd say; but there's evidence enough of both the kernel of truth within Philip Larkin's overly-dystopic maxim<\/a> about parents' baleful influence, and<\/em> of how determined people can survive it all and thrive nonetheless.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I viewed the first two episodes of Michael Apted's\u00a056 Up with nervous anticipation of a wonderful TV venture \u2013 one I have been watching since the late 1970s when the early programmes were used on Bath's pre-service teacher education PGCE...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment","category-new-publications"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1807"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1807\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}