A themed offering from Cinephile today with the instruction that ‘the parts share the stage’. This meant that having determined the first character (in my case Marcellus) the rest were relatively easy to uncover. All the characters are from Hamlet. I was going to add notes as to the role of each one but why repeat information readily available elsewhere. For anyone interested, details can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Characters_in_Hamlet
A thoroughly enjoyable crossword today with some excellent clues, as is to be expected from Cinephile. I wondered if the inclusion of ‘cannon’ and ‘ball’ in 1a was a deliberate red herring to lure solvers into thinking that they were looking for comedy double acts (also performers who ‘share a stage’), but perhaps it was just fortuitous.
Across
1 POMPOM POM POM (Brits in Oz) – two definitions, cannon = machine gun = pompom and pompom = a fluffy or woolly ball
4 CLAUDIUS UDI (revolt) in CLAUS (Santa) – UDI = Unilateral Declaration of Independence
9 LARGE hidden in ‘simiLAR GEsture’
10 WITHSTAND ST (street) in WIT (intelligence) HAND (worker)
11 NEEDFUL *(END FUEL)
12 LAERTES SET (group) REAL (authentic) reversed
13 UGLY [sn]UGLY
14 ISABELLA IS A BELL (requirement on bicycle) A
17 STOPPAGE STOP (deter) PAGE (attendant)
19 DROP dd
22 HORATIO H[orrific] ORATIO[n]
24 OPHELIA OP (work) HELIA[nthus] (part of sunflower)
25 ILL-GOTTEN *(LET IT LONG)
26 KIOSK IOS (tens) in KK (kings) – I like the use of ‘tens’ to indicate ‘I0S’
27 GERTRUDE G (good) ER (queen) D[eceit] in TRUE (loyal)
28 HAMLET dd
Down
1 POLONIUS POLO (game) NI (Ulster) US (American)
2 MARCELLUS *(CLEAR SLUM)
3 ONE-OFF dd -1 indicating subtract 1 or ‘one off’
5 LITTLE BIGHORN cd – cape = horn
6 UNSTEEL *(NUTS) EEL
7 INAPT NAP (drop off) in IT
8 SADIST SAD (being victim of unhappiness) IS T (time)
10 WELL-SUPPORTED WELL (supply of water) SUP (drink) PORT (wine) ED (editor, journalist)
15 APRIL FOOL *(FIR APOLLO) – ‘sucker in spring’ is a delightful definition!
16 UPMARKET UP (increased) MARKET (traffic)
18 OUTDOOR OUTDO (excel) OR (gold)
20 SHYING cd
21 CHUKKA homophone of ‘chucker’ – a period of play in polo
23 RULER dd
Gaufrid – I didn’t notice he tiny ‘share the stage’ instruction till you mentioned it. However, the ‘parts’ clues made it obvious quite quickly. Easier than usual from the Rev. but enjoyable just the same.