Jasmin, companion in the West End

About Jasmin

Small, precise and very hard to outpace, Jasmin makes the West End look easy. She is 160 cm and petite, her hair long, straight, chestnut brown, her eyes brown and quick to widen when she is enjoying herself, which is nearly always. She dresses for theatre hours: a dress that survives a taxi, a coat with pockets, shoes chosen for Aldwych pavements rather than for a lobby photograph. In her early twenties, she has already learned the thing that takes most people a decade, which is how to be early without being anxious.

Her English is quick and her timing is quicker. She is a natural mimic, kind about it, and she will have the whole room sketched for you by the interval. She reads the theatre listings the way other people read the sports pages, holds strong views on which revivals deserved the fuss, and is entirely happy to be argued with. Underneath the speed she is attentive: she notices when you have stopped enjoying something and changes course before you have to say so.

Her West End evening is built around the clock. An early table at The Delaunay on Aldwych, where the room is full of people due somewhere else at half past seven, then the short walk to whichever theatre you chose. Afterwards she likes the streets better than another bar, and the route home past Covent Garden stretches or shortens to fit whatever you are still arguing about. She lives in Soho, five minutes away on foot, so a curtain-time booking is simple for her.

Hotels, stations and the theatres between them are listed on the West End page. Give booking the show and the night, and Cordelia works out the latest hour that still gets you into your seats.

Booking her

For a theatre evening, give the desk the show, the curtain time and your hotel, and Cordelia works backwards to the meeting hour. Jasmin lives five minutes from the West End, so late requests are worth asking about.

Her figures are the same figures every companion here works to, printed on the rates page, and the order a booking runs in is on the booking page.

An evening with Jasmin

The shape is fixed by the curtain and she likes it that way. Six o'clock, you meet at the hotel. Twenty past, you are at the table, and she has already checked how long the first act runs. Dinner is two courses and no dawdling, which sounds brisk and is not, because she talks the whole way through it.

After the show she wants to walk. Up through the piazza while the buskers pack their cases, along the quiet side of the market, past the stage doors where people are still waiting. She will tell you what she thought of the second act, at length, and then ask what you thought and actually listen. It ends at your door or at a last drink, and she is happy to be told which.