Red Carpet and Premiere Chauffeur

Structurally, a Leicester Square premiere and an awards evening anywhere in London work the same way. Guests get an arrival window rather than a time. Cars sit in a marshalled lane and are released one by one. Both sides photograph the twenty seconds between the door opening and the step. Then the evening runs long inside, and the departure tends to be slower and a good deal less organised than the arrival was.

Precision is what the chauffeur is being paid for here. Joining the lane at the right moment. Stopping exactly on the mark, not a length short. Opening on whichever side the carpet lies, which sounds obvious until you have watched somebody step out into a hedge. Your driver takes marshals' instructions without hesitation, clears the lane cleanly, and waits for the departure on a known street instead of circling the block.

Several things make an evening like this work. Arrival windows set by the production team are firm, so a holding point nearby is planned for what is very often the case: being early. Where a plus-one arrives separately, or a team follows behind, a second vehicle holds everybody to the same timeline. Accreditation, passes and the running order all come from the event. Luxury Chauffeurs is independent, with no say whatever in who appears on the list.

For sheer presence, and for what photographers expect to see, the Rolls-Royce Phantom is the car; a Ghost achieves much the same with greater restraint. If arriving unnoticed is the point, a dark Mercedes S-Class serves far better, which is precisely why our vehicles carry no branding. Stylists, a change of shoes and everything else that should not be seen arriving go in a V-Class.