From doors to the curtain call: good manners in the stalls with company beside you

Doors, and the last stretch before the lights go down

Most West End houses open their doors somewhere between thirty minutes and an hour before the curtain, and the calmest version of the evening arrives early in that window. Many theatres now check bags on the way in, so travel with something small. Not every house has a cloakroom, and those that do fill quickly, so a coat that folds onto a lap is worth more tonight than a grand one that needs a hanger.

Settle the tickets before you meet. If they live on your phone, the simplest arrangement is to meet outside under the canopy and go in together. If they are waiting at the box office, bring the card you paid with, because some houses ask to see it. Either way, tell the desk exactly where you will be standing, and she will find you at the minute agreed.

Along the row and into the seats

The walk along a crowded row is the first moment a theatre date is on display. Go in whichever order leaves her the better seat: you take the aisle if she would rather not be squeezed past all night, the inside if the aisle has the legroom she needs. Thank each person who stands for you, keep bags high and never stop halfway along to wrestle with a coat.

Once seated, settle the armrest early and generously. Programmes, sweets and water go down within reach before the lights dim, and anything wrapped in crackling paper is opened now or not at all.

Phones, whispers and the glow problem

A phone on silent is not enough. Its screen lights a dark auditorium like a torch, and from the circle every glowing rectangle in the stalls is visible. Switch it off, not down, and leave it off until the interval. Photography and filming during the performance are forbidden almost everywhere, and the ushers are quick to say so.

Whispers travel further than anybody believes. A brief word at a scene change is fine; a running commentary is not, however clever. Laugh when it is funny, applaud the big numbers and do not sing along, even in a musical built entirely from songs the whole audience knows, because the people around you bought tickets for the cast. Affection in the stalls stays at the level of a shared armrest and a glance during the good bits.

The interval is the real date

Fifteen or twenty minutes of interval hold the best conversation of the night, and they are worth protecting. Drinks ordered on the way in, as the pre-theatre notes describe, are waiting when the house lights come up, and in most theatres ushers sell tubs of ice cream in the auditorium itself, a very British ritual that still delights visitors. The queue for the facilities can be long, especially for women, so let her go first while you hold the drinks.

Talk about the play rather than your inbox. The first half has handed you both something to say, and a companion with a real opinion makes a long second act feel short. Lea will cheerfully defend a production the rest of the bar has decided to dislike, which is the best kind of interval argument. Bells or an announcement call the audience back a few minutes before the restart; move at the first one, not the last.

The curtain call and the way out

Stay for the bows. The company has worked for three hours, and leaving during the curtain call to beat the crowd is the one habit West End audiences find hard to forgive. A standing ovation is never compulsory: stand if you want to, stay seated if you do not, and nobody minds either way.

Then leave without hurry. Collect the coats, check under the seats for the programme and her gloves, and head for whatever comes next. If that is supper, the late table notes cover where and when. The stage door of a big musical draws a crowd of fans after the show; in company it is usually kinder to leave them to it.

She is a guest, not a prop

The best theatre evenings with a companion treat her as a guest at the show rather than an ornament beside it. Name the production when you book, so she can choose whether to read about it first, and ask what she thought before you tell her what you did. Karolina could draw the seating plan of most houses in WC2 from memory and will know where a pillar spoils the view; Luna, who buys theatre tickets for herself on her nights off, is one of the three auburn companions here and brings a genuine opinion to the interval rather than a polite one.

Dress is simpler than people fear. The West End has no dress code, and a smart jacket covers every house outside an opera gala. She will dress to suit the evening you describe, so describe it: the show, the dinner and whether anything formal follows.

Booking the evening around the performance

A theatre evening with dinner first sits inside the dinner date, four hours at £900, if the play is short; when it runs long, the desk puts a longer booking in writing before anything is fixed. Press nights and company outings belong to the press nights and client dinners format. The rates page gives every length and figure; the theatres around the Piazza are on Covent Garden, and the houses along Charing Cross Road on Leicester Square.