Hampton on Hampton: Conversations with Christopher Hampton

'A lot of my plays begin as comedies and mutate in the course of the evening, because my instinct is that you have to welcome the audience in and make sure they're sitting comfortably before you can give them an adequate punch on the jaw.'

Since the acclaimed London première of his first play in 1966, Christopher Hampton has established himself as one of Britain's most prominent, and least predictable, dramatists.

From his best-known play, Les Liaisons Dangereuses, and its Oscar-winning fil...