New Victoria Theatre

Built into a shopping-centre development in the Surrey commuter town of Woking and opened in 1992, the New Victoria is one of the larger receiving theatres in the south-east of England, its size dictating its diet: West End musicals on tour, pantomime, ballet and opera companies working the national circuit. Puccini's Tosca has come through in that traffic — grand opera in a house that must also seat a Christmas audience of children.