Nights out: Windsor, Eton and the last hour of the evening

The theatre night, done in the right order

Theatre Royal Windsor on Thames Street is ninety seconds from three hotels, which is the single most useful fact on this page. A show there comes out around half ten, and at that hour Windsor offers a hotel bar and very little else. So dinner goes before the curtain, at half six, and the last part of the night goes to the bar afterwards.

Do it the other way round and you will be eating at eleven or not at all. Etta books the table for the earlier hour as part of the arrangement if you ask her to.

The bridge, and why it keeps coming up

Windsor and Eton are separated by about thirty seconds of walking and the view from the middle of it is the best free thing in Berkshire. Most nights out here end up on that bridge whether anybody planned it or not. Eton is the quieter side, one street with perhaps five tables worth having on it, and you can hear each other in every one of them.

Cross back over and the castle wall is lit, the day visitors have gone, and the High Street looks like a village again. That happens at about nine and it is the hour to be outside.

What stays open

Less than you would like and more than the reputation suggests. The hotel bars on the High Street keep going, the older pubs on both sides of the river do not care what time your flight is, and the Promenade tables by the water run later in summer than anybody expects. Kitchens are the thing that closes, not rooms.

The shuttle to Slough gives up around half eleven, so if the night is going to run past that, book it long rather than watching the clock and losing an hour to the last train.

The Slough version

It exists and it is better than the jokes allow. The Curve on William Street usually has something on in the theatre space and sits four minutes from the station, and the town centre has more going on than its reputation permits. It is not a substitute for Windsor and nobody here pretends it is, but it is a genuinely decent evening and it needs no car at all.

Four hours without a show

She meets you at seven in the hotel bar and you walk the length of the High Street while there is still some light on the castle wall. A table at half seven, kept deliberately early, takes you to about nine. Then the bridge, once the day visitors have gone, and a slow walk up Eton High Street to one of the old pubs on that bank. The booking ends at eleven, which is roughly when both towns decide the evening is over as well.

If it rains, or the show is off

Windsor in the rain is still a good evening, only with a shorter walk in it. The riverside tables move indoors, the bridge becomes a quick crossing rather than a place to stand, and the hotel bars take up the slack. If a performance is cancelled, tell Etta and she will rebuild the night around a later table instead. The figure does not change because the weather did.

Who to ask for

Luna is the theatre name. She is excellent in an interval, delivers a complete verdict on the first half in twenty minutes, and will tell you honestly if there is nothing worth seeing that week. Lucy treats Eton as one room and decides on the spot whether the night wants a bridge in it. Jasmin will walk you the length of the High Street with a running commentary on the shopfronts.

Molly will have looked at what is on before you ask, and Bianka knows that nine o'clock is the best hour in this town. Everyone available this week is listed on who is on.