THEATRE: Show Business: Jan. 2, 1939

> Since the war scare London’s theatre-goers have been so jittery that stage shootings there must now be committed “quietly.” Backstage notices read: “A loud report is now a physical strain which causes both pain and actual illness.”

> Unpredictable, inexhaustible, octogenarian George Bernard Shaw last week disclosed that he is at work on a historical play laid in the reign of Charles II. Said Shaw to sex-sniffing reporters: “Oh, forget about Nell Gwyn; this is going to be about really interesting people . . . Sir Isaac Newton, for instance.”