Hampton, Christopher (1946-…), is a British playwright and scriptwriter for television and motion pictures. He became noted for his original plays, adaptations, and translations. A significant recurring theme in his work is power, both political and sexual. His plays range from social protest to satire and sophisticated comedy.
Christopher James Hampton was born on Jan. 26, 1946, in the Azores islands. He spent his childhood with his family in Aden (now Yemen), Egypt, and Zanzibar (now part of Tanzania). He studied German and French at Oxford University in the United Kingdom. Hampton wrote his first play, When Did You Last See My Mother? (1964), when he was an 18-year-old college student. The play was first performed by Oxford undergraduates. It was then produced at the Royal Court Theatre in London in 1966. From 1968 to 1970, Hampton was the Royal Court’s first resident dramatist. The Royal Court staged all of Hampton’s early plays, including Total Eclipse (1968), The Philanthropist (1970), Savages (1973), and Treats (1976).
Hampton adapted into English three plays by the Austrian dramatist Ödön von Horváth—Tales from the Vienna Woods (1977), Don Juan Comes Back from the War (1978), and Faith, Hope and Charity (1989). Horváth appears as a character in Hampton’s play Tales from Hollywood (1983). Other characters in the play include the German writers Bertolt Brecht, Heinrich Mann, and Thomas Mann. Hampton also has translated plays by such major dramatists as Molière of France, Anton Chekhov of Russia, and Henrik Ibsen of Norway. In addition, Hampton translated three popular works by the French playwright Yasmina Reza—Art (1996), The Unexpected Man (1998), and God of Carnage (2008).
Hampton’s play Les Liaisons Dangereuses (1985) is a study of sexual manners and morals. It is a stage adaptation of the novel Les Liaisons dangereuses (1782), by the French writer Pierre Choderlos de Laclos. Hampton also adapted the novel as a motion picture, Dangerous Liaisons (1988), for which he won an Academy Award.
Hampton’s other film adaptations include A Doll’s House (1973), based on the play by Henrik Ibsen; The Honorary Consul (1984), based on the novel by English author Graham Greene; Mary Reilly (1996), based on the novel by American author Valerie Martin; and Atonement (2007), based on the novel by English author Ian McEwan. Hampton’s screenplay for Atonement was nominated for an Academy Award. Hampton also provided the scripts for the motion pictures Tales from the Vienna Woods (1979), based on a play by Ödön von Horváth; and Oviri (1986). With the French playwright Florian Zeller, Hampton wrote the screenplays for The Father (2020) and The Son (2022), two films based on plays by Zeller. Hampton wrote and directed the movie Carrington (1995), about the English painter Dora Carrington and her lifelong friend Lytton Strachey, an English writer. Carrington was the first film directed by Hampton.
Hampton wrote the script for the TV miniseries The History Man (1981), adapted from a novel by British writer Malcolm Bradbury. He also wrote the TV film Hotel du Lac (1986), based on a novel by British writer Anita Brookner.
With British composer Andrew Lloyd Webber and British lyricist Don Black, Hampton worked on the stage musical Sunset Boulevard (1993). He also wrote the librettos (texts) for the operas Waiting for the Barbarians (2005), Appomattox (2007), and The Trial (2014). The American Philip Glass composed the music for the three operas.
In 1999, Hampton was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE), for his services to literature. Queen Elizabeth II knighted him in 2019, and he became known as Sir Christopher Hampton.
