Caroline Sharman will succeed Mark Courtice as director of the New Theatre Royal after nearly six years in a similar post at Chipping Norton in Oxfordshire.

She has been programming a 220-seat theatre there, mostly with productions brought in from outside, but is also a director of shows in her own right and has staged an annual pantomime.

Although she said she wanted to co-operate with the Kings at Southsea, which has a traditional panto, she hoped there was room for an 'alternative' Christmas show at the 500-seat NTR.

But she added: 'My main task is to get the programming right so that we can continue the process of building audiences, and I have to wait and see how the rhythm of the programming goes.'

Ms Sharman ran Chichester's Minerva studio in 1991 after Michael Rudman left the Festival Theatre suddenly.

'Patrick Garland came in to rescue the season and asked me to take on the Minerva,' she said.

She herself directed the premiere of Adam Was A Gardener, and the season also included a new musical, Valentine's Day, featuring Ruthie Henshall at the beginning of her career.

Now, at the NTR, Ms Sharman hopes eventually to develop the kind of outreach work she has undertaken in Oxfordshire, taking plays and operas to village halls. She also spoke of 'facilitating and potentially leading' ideas for residencies suggested by the University of Portsmouth, whose vice-chancellor, Professor John Craven, chairs the NTR Trust.

She has already arranged a meeting with actress Sheila Hancock, the university's new chancellor.

Another major task will be to help draw up plans to develop the spare 'back-space' at the theatre.

She said: 'I have first to understand the relationship with the university, how the theatre can best benefit from that and whether there needs to be a commercial third party involved to bring in the dosh.'

But she added that she was used to working with the fact that there is never money in the theatre.