How do theatre reviews work?

[Puppylucky]

Hi Does anyone know how theatre reviews work in terms of timing, what gets reviewed etc.? We went to see Dr Strangelove last weekend (brilliant by the way). It was in its first week and there hadn't been any reviews prior to us going and I've just noticed it's still not been reviewed anywhere. It's quite a big deal I would have thought as it starts Steve Coogan and was adapted by Armando Iannucci so I'm surprised it's had no attention at all. Is this a deliberate decision by the production team to somehow avoid being reviewed?

So as I understand it there will be a week or so of ‘preview’ shows where they are tweaking the final product. They will then have a press night and that is when reviews start to appear. I might be wrong tho

just googled and the official opening night is 29th Oct so expect to see reviews around then :)

It's possible press night hasn't happened yet.

It's not unusual for there to be a couple of weeks of preview performances before the critics are invited to review.

There used to be (maybe still is) a diary of press nights for the West End , and London theatres used to plan when to schedule their press night based on what else was planned. No one wanted to be mentioned in the last couple of lines of a column when another big show had their press night the same week.

Traditional media reviews are also far less important in terms of ticket sales, so often no rush to get the critics in.

Ah ok thanks for such prompt and informative answers!