Another smooth, cleanly-clued puzzle from Armonie. I am a big fan of concise clues, and the brevity of these clues is impressive; I make it an average of exactly five words.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | REPRESENT REP (theatre company) RESENT (dislike) |
| 6 | BASIS I (interest) in BASS (deep) |
| 9 | NOISE N (northern) OISE (French river) |
| 10 | FLAGSTONE FLAGS (notes) TONE (quality) |
| 11 | ELASTICITY LAST (survive) I (independence) in E (eastern) CITY (metropolis) |
| 12 | FELL dd |
| 14 | ENDURES END (kill) URE (river) S (salmon, initially) I thought this was a nice surface |
| 15 | ROOSTER ROSTER (roll) with O (nothing) in it: I slowed myself down by putting ROASTER in here for some reason |
| 17 | CURATOR RAT[e] (price, cut) in CU (copper) and OR (gold) |
| 19 | DEFIANT *(FAINTED) |
| 20 | ACRE R (king) in ACE (champion) |
| 22 | JUST AS WELL JUST (only) A + SWELL (balloon) |
| 25 | TENTATIVE TENT (shelter) AT [h]IVE (bee’s home) |
| 26 | ARSON *(NORA’S) |
| 27 | DWELL D (500 and therefore “many”) WELL (fit) |
| 28 | EAST ENDER E (ecstasy) AS (since) TENDER (offer) |
| Down | |
| 1 | RANGE hidden in HonduRAN GEneral |
| 2 | PHILANDER PHIL (Prince Philip) AND ER (his queen). This was amusing |
| 3 | ELECTORATE E (English) LECTOR (reader) ATE (fed) |
| 4 | EFFECTS EFFECT (achieve) + S (second) |
| 5 | TRACTOR TRACT (leaflet) on OR (alternative) |
| 6 | BUST dd |
| 7 | SWORE SORE (angry) around W (wicket) |
| 8 | SMELL A RAT *(LETS ALARM) |
| 13 | CONFISCATE *(TONIC CAFE’S) |
| 14 | ENCHANTED *(AND THENCE) |
| 16 | TRAVERSED TRA (ART reversed) VERSED (practised). Negotiated as in “negotiated difficult terrain” |
| 18 | ROUTINE IN (popular) in ROUTE (a way) |
| 19 | DITHERS DI (detective inspector) TS (Eliot) holding HER. The term always reminds me of my favourite DI, Helen Mirren |
| 21 | RINSE N (nationalist) in RISE (revolt) |
| 23 | LINER LINE (queue) on R (river) |
| 24 | CALL C (“charlie” in the NATO phonetic alphabet) ALL (full) |