George Bernard Shaw once sent Winston Churchill a note inviting him to the debut performance of his play Saint Joan. He enclosed two tickets: "One for yourself and one for a friend -- if you have one."

Unable to attend, Churchill replied to express his regrets and to ask whether he might have tickets for the second night -- "if there is one."

[The shortest run in theatre history was that of a play called "The Lady of Lyons" which opened at the Shaftesbury Theatre on December 26th, 1888. After an hour, the audience was dismissed because no one could open the safety curtain.]