Theatreland’s best-kept secret is that the play is the centrepiece, not the evening. Done properly, a West End night has three acts of its own — the table before, the show itself, the conversation after — and the people who only book the middle one go home having seen a play but not had a night.
Choosing
Book the thing you cannot see anywhere else: the limited run, the actor on stage rather than on screen, the revival everyone will claim to have caught. Seats matter more than rows suggest — dress circle front beats stalls back in most houses. And the small theatres off the grand circuit often hold the sharpest work in London.
Before
The pre-theatre dinner is its own discipline: five forty-five, two courses, a kitchen that respects a curtain. The good rooms near the houses run this service like a drill and are proud of it. Arrive at the theatre with twenty minutes in hand — enough for the programme and the settling, no queue-panic in the coats.
The interval
Order the interval drinks before curtain up; collect them from the shelf with your name while the crowd fights the bar. The interval is a fifteen-minute salon — first verdicts, favourite lines, predictions for the second half. It is the evening’s hinge, and it is wasted in a queue.
After
The real last act is the supper afterwards — somewhere quiet within walking distance, where the show gets taken apart properly. What held, who stole it, whether the ending earned itself. A play watched alone ends at the curtain. A play discussed ends past midnight, which is the correct time for a West End evening to end.
The curtain falls; the conversation should not. I hold strong opinions about second acts.