I’m sorry to say that I found this puzzle rather uninspiring, though that may just be me. Some of the surfaces seemed contrived, or made little sense, and the nature of the wordplay meant that there were no enjoyable PDMs. In fact I was reminded of the comments I made in the first paragraph of my post on November 18th (#13,237). Having said that, I rather liked 6dn.
Across
1 SO BE IT OBE (award) in SIT (model) – ‘is given’ seems superfluous to both the wordplay and the surface
4 TRANSEPT [dres]S in *(PATTERN)
9 RENOIR hidden reversal in ‘tRIO NERvously’
10 PILASTER *(SPELT IRA[q])
12 JAIL J (judge) AIL (suffer)
13 BAMBI BA (graduate) MB (doctor) I[nject]
14 CREE CREE[p] (page avoids yes-man)
17 VIRGINIA WADE VIRGINIA (US state) homophone of ‘weighed’ (considered)
20 RICHARD ADAMS RICH (full) AD (commercial) in *(DRAMAS)
23 HEAL E (drug) in HAL (Harry)
24 TAGUS [q]U[iz] in TAGS (names)
25 FARL FAR[mer] (agriculturist wanting only half) L (left)
28 ROULETTE LET (permitted) in *(OUTER)
29 LUGOSI LUG (pull) OS (huge) I (international) – Béla Lugosi, the actor who played Count Dracula
30 BROOKLYN ORB reversed (ball around) OK (fair) LYN[x] (tailless cat)
31 GAMBIT GAMB[on](actor Michael gives up on) IT
Down
1 SARAJEVO JA (German agreed) in OVER (surplus) AS (when) reversed
2 BANDITRY N (new) DI (inspector) in BAT (club) RY (tracks)
3 IRIS IR (taxmen) I[nvestigate] S[ky]
5 RAINBOW TROUT *(NARROW BIT) OUT (exposed)
6 NOAH *(AN[imal] HO[me])
7 ENTIRE ENT (department of hospital) IRE (raging)
8 TUREEN [satellit]E in *(TUNER)
11 DANISH PASTRY SH (mum) *(AIDS PAN) TRY (attempt)
15 DIGIT DIG (poke) I[nsec]T
16 AD-MAN [m]ADMAN (releasing head from nut)
18 CATACOMB C[anal] AT A COMB (one goes through locks)
19 PSALMIST [band]S in PAL (friend) MIST (blur)
21 CHERUB CHE (revolutionary) RUB (cosmetic) – I can find no support for rub=cosmetic. The nearest definition is in COED: “an ointment designed to be rubbed on the skin”
22 CARUSO CAR (wheels) U (top-class) S (soprano) O (old)
26 PECK PE (training) C[hic]K
27 JURA JUR[y] (twelve fair people taking year out) A – a small mountain range north of the Alps
Got Virginia Wade quite quickly, but wondered why there was no homophone indicator – shouldn’t there be something like, “we hear” to indicate this? I’m a newbie…
16D is neat.
Hi flex
The homophone indicator in 17ac is ‘broadcasting’ as in ‘on the air’, another homophone indicator that you will come across.