An excellent offering from Dac. Solving time: 18 mins.
< = reversed * = anagram
ACROSS
1 PLAY BALL “Cooperate to amalgamate drama and dance” My favourite clue.
5 TI (ES U) P (use in pit)<
9 F (RIGHT) ENS blues = political right.
15 WATER SPANIELS New to me.
17 CHASE ONES TAIL (cases in a hotel)* Well-concealed anagram.
23 HeAd D ON odd letters of head + don = teacher
24 LO (Mae) WEST OFT
25 RE PAST
26 STOCK(I)ER Great misdirection – also tempted by stacker for a while. squat = stocky
DOWN
2 AMIS H
4 LE ER Outskirts = first two and last two letters.
7 STAIRWELL flight = stairs
10 SHE E PISH
16 SCOR(e) CHER (Singer who first emerged with Sonny in the 60s)
18 RECT (“wrecked) OR Other Ranks = soldiers = men
21 ENO KI(n) (one)* New word for me that I guessed from the wordplay, verifying after.
22 SWOT First letters & lit.
Great stuff. 26A was tremendous for the misdirection, would never have thought to parse it as a comparative.
Still don’t see 20A though: IMPEDE(d) = hampered to a large extent, but the definition IMPEDE = scientist doesn’t mean anything to me yet. Any pointers?
I think 20A is hAMPEREd – wasn’t Ampere a scientist?
Yes, that was a hidden – Amperes (abbrev amps) named after him