Enigmatic Variations No. 1424: Lending a Hand by Kcit

Hi everyone.  I hope you are well.  Thanks to Kcit for an enjoyable puzzle which certainly had someThing about it.

The preamble reads:

The five five-letter across entries in order are the successive even-numbered steps in a word ladder such as CRAVE – CRANE – CRONE – CRONY – IRONY – IRONS – ICONS etc; 20 is unclued – in no particular order, the other four clues to these entries are actually to the intervening steps that do not appear in the diagram.  The first and last steps (both also real words), which must be appended outside the grid as shown, are two associates of the 9,17, both LENDING A HAND.  10 of the remaining clues each contain a misprint of one letter in the definition part; correct letters, in clue order spell out a name connected with both associates.  Chambers Dictionary (2016) is recommended; 24 is in The Oxford Dictionary of English.

It’s always nice when the first clue goes straight in … however, although 1a was the first clue I solved, it wasn’t going to slot immediately (or indeed at all) into the grid.  Ah well, still a start.  The SW was actually where I had most joy at first; the grid fill was a fairly steady progression upwards and rightwards from there.

On the way, the word ladder gave a little bit of a wobble, but it helped to reread the preamble and be reminded that the clued entries to intermediate steps were in no particular order.  Once I could see that 17d looked like FAMILY, I immediately thought of the ADDAMS FAMILY, even though only the M of 9d was in place at that point. This helped me to get all the rungs in place – and explain the title!  Now all that remained was finishing the pesky NW corner …

… and identifying all the corrections to the misprinted clues.  These give TED CASSIDY, who played both LURCH and THING (except when they appeared together).  The ladder is below, with the completed grid, highlighted for clarity only.

LURCH
LARCH
LAUCH
SAUCH
SAUCE
SAICE
SPICE
SPINE
SHINE
THINE
THING