Kentish Town escorts in NW5, a district with a stage and no hotel

One stage, several good rooms

The O2 Forum Kentish Town sits on Highgate Road, two minutes from the station, in a building whose outside gives no hint of what the inside sounds like. The balcony is worth the stairs and the left hand side of it is where the regulars stand. Doors are usually seven, support acts run later than advertised, and the street outside fills and empties within about fifteen minutes at the end.

Above it the road becomes residential and the pubs take over. The Bull and Last sits near the top of Highgate Road, a corner house that takes its kitchen seriously and its own importance lightly, and it is the natural meeting point for anybody who would rather begin an evening with a walk than a bar. The heath gates are five minutes further, and the lit edges of the fields stay busy and perfectly pleasant well into the evening.

There is no hotel in NW5

That is the plain fact and it catches people out. Kentish Town has restaurants, pubs, a mainline platform and a two thousand capacity hall, and not one hotel worth the name. Guests who want a room nearby book in Camden or on the Euston Road and come up, which is a small journey rather than a compromise.

NW1 7BY is one stop south and about four minutes on the tube. The coaching inn on Parkway at NW1 7PS is the same distance and a nicer building. A third stands on the Euston Road at NW1 2AJ, three stops down and roughly ten minutes, which suits anybody arriving by train who wants to spend the evening up here and sleep near the platforms.

Most bookings in this postcode are residential, and that is by far the easiest arrangement. Send the street and the door number rather than the postcode alone; the roads off Fortess Road repeat their names in a way that is genuinely confusing after dark.

Trains that are still running when the gig ends

Kentish Town station is two minutes from the Forum and carries the Northern line together with National Rail services through the Thameslink core, which is an unusually generous pairing for a district this small. Kentish Town West, six minutes west, is on the London Overground and is the quick way across to Camden Road or towards Hampstead Heath. Tufnell Park, ten minutes north up the Fortess Road side, is the quieter Northern line platform and the one to walk to if the crowd is heading the other way.

The Northern line runs through the night on Fridays and Saturdays, so a late finish is rarely a problem in NW5. Buses run along Kentish Town Road every night. A car down into the middle of town takes about twenty minutes outside the evening rush and a good deal longer on a night when the Forum is full.

How an evening here is usually put together

Around a doors time, more often than not. Send that rather than a start time and the desk will set a meeting an hour before it, which gives you a drink and a conversation before anyone has to raise their voice. Three hours at £700 takes in the show and a late table afterwards; two at £500 covers dinner and the walk up to the gates without the music at all.

The other kind of NW5 evening starts with the sky. If it is dry and the light is holding, a booking here can begin at the heath end of Highgate Road and work downhill instead, which is a better start to a night than any bar in the postcode. Say which you would rather and the desk will arrange the meeting point accordingly, or leave it open and let her decide on the day.

Who works this road

Danielle and Lucy are both anchored in Kentish Town and know it from opposite ends. Danielle builds her nights around the Forum, asks for the doors time rather than the start, and checks the last train for you before you think of it. Lucy keeps to the top of Highgate Road, books her own table because she knows which rooms are quiet at nine, and will walk you up to the heath gates afterwards if the evening is dry.

One stop south, Angelika, Michelle and Tiffany reach any NW5 address in under ten minutes. Uphill, Karolina and Patricia come down from Highgate. The rest of the list travels in, usually within forty minutes.

Either side of NW5

One stop south, Camden Town has the halls and the crowds and the canal. Straight up the hill, the village above the heath is a twenty minute climb or ten minutes in a car, and it keeps neither a station in its middle nor a hotel. West across the fields, Hampstead is twenty five minutes on foot over Parliament Hill in daylight and a short ride round the edge after dark. East, Finsbury Park is fifteen minutes by bus and opens the Piccadilly and Victoria lines.