A night out that runs until the last train goes

What is actually on

More than the postcode suggests. There is a cinema in the shopping centre in Hounslow Central, five minutes from the station and rarely a third full after ten. Hayes has the restored record works on Blyth Road with a small cinema at the end of the yard, and a theatre a short ride away that programmes properly. Brentford has a riverside arts centre with films and music in it most nights.

None of that is world famous and all of it is genuinely good. It is also bookable at four in the afternoon for the same evening, which is not true of anything in the West End, and the seats are wider and the room is a third full.

Isleworth and Whitton have almost nothing on after ten, which some guests treat as a deficiency and others treat as the reason they came out here. If that is the evening you want, a quiet one, say so and it will be built for you instead.

The order of the evening

Dinner first, always. A film at nine with dinner afterwards means eating at half past eleven in a borough where most kitchens have closed, and the evening ends with two people in a hotel lobby wondering where the night went.

Eat at seven or eight, take the late screening, and you come out somewhere between half ten and midnight with the trains still running and a drink still possible. That is the shape every companion here will suggest if you let her.

The last train, honestly

This is the one piece of local knowledge that decides how a night out here ends. The Piccadilly line runs to about half past midnight and straight through on Friday and Saturday nights, which is why the TW3 and TW4 evenings can run late without anybody watching a clock. The Elizabeth line at Hayes is late and fast. The Waterloo trains serving the river towns stop a little after twelve and there is no night service behind them.

Every companion on this list knows her own last train and builds the final hour around it rather than being ambushed by it. If you would rather the evening did not end there, an overnight removes the question entirely.

Match nights, and how to use them

Brentford has a stadium next to a station and twelve thousand people walking past the canal on a match night. For an hour either side of kick off the streets are solid and the roads are worse. It is a tremendous thing to walk through if that is what you came for, and a hopeless evening if it is not.

Twickenham is the same on a larger scale, a dozen or so days a year. Several of the companions here check the fixture list before agreeing a date, which is worth knowing about them rather than discovering on the night. An hour after the final whistle the same streets are empty and the same restaurants are yours.

What to send

The date, the hour, how long and the road or hotel. Add what sort of night you are after, because a film and a show pull different names. If you want somebody to choose the film, say that too and she will, with an opinion about which row to take.

Tickets are worth buying in advance on a Friday and are not worth bothering about midweek. The rest of the steps are on the booking page and the whole fee goes to the companion in person, quietly, in the first few minutes after she arrives.

Five who stay out late

Michelle takes dinner and a late screening on Blyth Road and can talk to anybody in the building. Nancy prefers theatre evenings and late dinners and takes short notice dates. Molly has firm views on which row to sit in and would rather start at nine. Patricia does an evening screening on the Brentford high street with dinner at the Lock afterwards. Danielle takes late starts once the football crowd has gone home. The full list sits on On The Route.