Ben Francis
Christopher Hampton: Dramatic Ironist

Christopher Hampton: Dramatic Ironist by Ben Francis traces the career of this versatile dramatist, who became a professional writer while he was still a student in the 1960s. Dubbed by the critic Michael Billington as “a classicist in an age of romantics” Hampton established his credentials in the theatre with highly polished, witty plays, such as Total Eclipse, his play about the symbolist poets Rimbaud and Verlaine, The Philanthropist, an ironic updating of Molière’s Le Misanthrope, and Tales from Hollywood. His adaptation of Laclos’ novel Les Liaisons Dangereuses was one of the most successful productions of the 1980s and he won an Oscar for his screenplay for the film version, Dangerous Liaisons.

Despite the many prizes he has won, and the fact that he has written some of the most popular and widely performed plays since the 60s, there has been no full-length study of Hampton’s work previously published in Britain. Christopher Hampton: Dramatic Ironist is a comprehensive study of his stage plays, television plays, films and translations, and is the fullest account yet presented of his achievements up to his debut as a film director with Carrington for which he also wrote the screenplay.