Lea, sweet Oud-Zuid escort with auburn waves

The curtain has just come down at the Stadsschouwburg. Out on Leidseplein the trams are chiming, café windows throw gold across the square, and Lea is still humming the final scene, auburn waves bouncing as she insists, very sweetly, that the second act was far better than the first. By the time the two of you reach the quieter streets she has recast the lead, rewritten the ending and decided which line she will be quoting all week.

You may disagree. She will enjoy that enormously.

Spontaneous and charming in equal measure, Lea is a petite 161 cm, aged 23, with long wavy auburn hair and hazel eyes that crinkle at the corners whenever she laughs. Her look is soft, romantic and sun-kissed, the sort of style that makes a formal hotel room feel lived in within minutes of her arrival. Sweetness is her natural register, though there is a mischievous streak just beneath it that surfaces whenever a plan looks too sensible.

Theatre is only one of her loves. Interior design is another, and she cannot step into a suite without clocking the lamps, the fabrics and the single chair that does not belong. Ceramics keeps her hands busy; she throws small bowls on a wheel and describes the moment the clay finally centres as a kind of quiet magic. Ask about her latest piece and you will hear about glazes, kiln temperatures and one heroic failure she keeps on a shelf anyway.

She lives in Oud-Zuid, a short stroll from Museumplein, yet she is just as happy travelling north toward the gabled canal houses where the old district's crimson light plays on the water. For a bolder theatre companion, try Luna; for someone else who knows her way around a pottery wheel, there is Milena. Lea herself would simply tell you that the best evenings are the ones nobody quite planned.