The preamble states that five answers have something in common but by my count it could be six.
These are:
Little Red Riding Hood (2,3dn) and wolf (6dn)
Pied Piper (8dn) and rats (20ac)
Goldilocks (13dn) and Three Bears (21,23dn)
I suppose it could be argued that children are more associated with the Pied Piper but he would not have been in Hamelin had it not been for the rats. Then again, do rats appear in stage productions of this tale? If not then five answers with something in common is correct, they are all characters in a play/pantomime.
Apart from a couple of dodgy homophones (11ac & 1dn), I think there are two further errors in this puzzle (15ac & 2,3dn). However, it was still a bit of fun.
Across
1 SALARY CAP *(PAY RASCAL) – ‘pay’ is doing double duty as part of both the definition and the anagram fodder
6 WHELP W (quarter) HELP (aid)
9 DATED dd
10 MADELEINE DELE (remove) in MAINE (US state)
11 MELANCHOLY (dodgy) homophone of ‘melon cauli’ (fruit and veg)
12 KEEP PEEK (look) reversed
14 MARCHER M (Monsieur) ARCHER ([William] Tell)
15 ROOFTOP R[af] O OFT (zero feet) OP (operation) – as written the wordplay gives ‘raoftop’
17 TADPOLE TAD (a little) POLE (European)
19 AUDITOR A UDI (mutiny) ROT (decay) reversed
20 RATS cd
22 PETROL BOMB *(MR POBBLE TO[es])
25 AIRSTREAM *(ARREST) in AIM (goal)
26 COTTA COTTA[ge] (most of the house)
27 EMERY hidden in ‘mal dE MER You’
28 SINUSITIS S (society) IN US (America) IT IS
Down
1 SEDUM homophone (speaking) of ‘seed em’ (saw them in dialect) – ‘sed um’ could be ‘saw them’ speaking in dialect but neither word is supported by Chambers hence my initial parsing, even though the homophone is a little dodgy.
2,3 LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD cd – Yorkshire is divided into Ridings but its emblem is the white rose so where does the ‘red’ come from?
4 CAMPHOR CAMP (lodge) H (hospital) OR (gold)
5 PADDLER dd
6 WOLF FLOW (move) reversed – to wolf one’s food or to ‘down’
7 EXILE IL (he, in French) in EXE (river)
8 PIED PIPER cd
13 GOLDILOCKS OLD in GI (soldier) LOCKS (security devices)
14 MOTORCADE MO (Dr) TOR (hill) CADE (old rebel)
16 TIT FOR TAT dd – Cockney rhyming slang for hat
18 ELEVENS [th]E LEVEN (loch) S[cottish]
19 AHRIMAN *(HAIR) MAN (male)
21,23 THREE BEARS *(THERE) BEARS (has a baby)
24 STAY dd
Thanks Gaufrid. In 15ac I thought the “leaders of RAF” must be RO[yal air force].
Also I would say the theme is children’s stories or fairytales rather than plays or pantos specifically. I agree that “five” should be “six”.
Hi Andrew
You could well be right about RO[yal …..] (it would be a typical Cinephile ploy) but that leaves ‘at’ as a joiner, in the sense of ‘beside’, which is a bit of a stretch.
Could it be that the answer to 6d is not ‘WOLF’ but ‘WELL’? In which case, only five answers have something in common.
Hi Steve
An interesting thought and I can see your reasoning. However, ‘well’ is to issue or pour forth and for it to equate with ‘move up’ it would have to be ‘well up’ (not that that would trouble Cinephile too much). ‘Down’ can mean ill so ‘instead of down’ could give ‘well’ to form a double definition.
It seems that there could be two possible answers and the preamble was indicating which was to be chosen, but with Little Red Riding Hood in the grid I still favour WOLF. Whatever, we will see which it is when the answers are published tomorrow.
It may be a bit tenuous, but I wonder if in 2/3 there is a reference to David Peace’s Yorkshire-set “Red Riding” crime novels. There have been three films made of these, which no doubt a cinephile would be familiar with.
Hi Tom
Thanks for the input. I am not familiar with either the novels or the films and, as you say, it is a bit tenuous. To go from ‘Yorkshire’ to the setting for a series of novels/films to ‘Red Riding’ is pushing things even for Cinephile. It might have been different if these novels had been turned into popular TV series.
I have no problems with the LITTLE (miniature) or RIDING HOOD (Yorkshire version of Robin). I just can’t account for the RED which is annoying me!
As a proponent of the forcible redistribution of property to the proletariat, Robin was of course a Red 😉
Hi Agentzero
You may well be right. Unfortunately we will never know. 🙁
I’m quite sure Auracaria didn’t have my sense of “Red” in mind. Joking aside, I think there just is no strict justification for it, hence the qm. Interestingly, though, there was a book and television programme set in Yorkshire titled “Red Riding.”
Completed the puzzle bar one. Unable to solve AHRIMAN from the wordplay. Ahri for Hair* wasn’t clear to me.
The ‘Dele’ ins into ‘Maine’ for remove is taking a liberty, even for Araucaria!!
Otherwise yet another corker from the doyen of the crossword puzzle.