Hoskins pops up again today – we’re in for a treat.
And what a treat! Tuesday is theme day and Hoskins has excelled himself with the surnames of no less than 16 comedians past and present filling all the across entries. This is the sort of themed puzzle we really like – where the theme creeps up on you as you work your way through the clues – it’s not too obvious, but not too obscure either – just right.
We have all the expected smooth surfaces, with a scattering of references to sex and drugs. In our opinion, this is one of Hoskins’ best puzzles to date – and there’s a lot of competition for that title.
sTATE (say) without the ‘s’ (last or ‘ultimate’ letter in works) – Catherine Tate
NOBbLE (drug, as in drugging a racehorse to prevent it from winning) without one of the middle two ‘b’s (‘half-heartedly’) – Ross Noble
A reversal (‘winding’) of CAM (river in Cambridge) + K (1000 – ‘grand’) – Lee Mack. We’ve not come across this abbreviation for a mackintosh before, but it is in Chambers
A reversal (‘pirouettes’) of SIR (teacher) after MO (second) R (first letter or ‘piece’ of Ravel) – Chris Morris
N N (first and last letters or ‘jacket’ of nankeen) in or ‘picked up’ by SKIER (downhiller) – Frank Skinner
A homophone (‘on the radio’) of CELLARS (wine stores) – Peter Sellers
dRENCH (pour water on) with the first letter or ‘top’ omitted or ‘taken off’ and replaced with F (fellow) – Dawn French
RE (concerning) EVE (first lady) S (son) – Vic Reeves
RE (Royal Engineers) L (first letter or ‘heading’ to level) after LA (Los Angeles – ‘city’) U (uranium) – Stan Laurel
Hidden (‘some’) in felloW IS DOMinating – Norman Wisdom
E (European) FIELD (competitors) round or ‘touring’ N (north) – Harry Enfield
An anagram (‘perverted’) of ROMANCE – Rhona Cameron
tALKER (speaker) with the first letter or ‘head’ changing to W (first or ‘primary’ letter of woozy) – Roy Walker
I’D (‘Hoskins had’) LEg (member) without the last letter or ‘undersized’ – Eric Idle
A + LL (‘couple of lines’) E (earl) N (northern) – Dave Allen. We had to check that there is a Lough Allen – it’s mostly in County Leitrim
CO (company) O (over) K (middle or ‘essential’ letter of pekoe) – Peter Cook
A homophone (‘for an audience’) of BARE (being undressed)
An anagram (‘blowing about’) of HEN and GRASS
BE (represent) F (female) round or ‘charged with’ LIE (fib)
O (old) ME (Hoskins) N (middle or ‘essential’ letter of caned)
TOM (male cat) in or ‘getting between’ A S (son)
B (bishop) A SET (group) round or ‘pinching’ S (last letter or ‘rear’ of boss)
C (Conservative) in or ‘opening’ COR (my, as an interjection) ALE (beer)
A reversal (‘flipping’) of DEVIL (Dickens, as in ‘what the Dickens’)
ET (film) U (posh) + a reversal (‘sent up’) of ED (editor)
An anagram (‘must get treatment’) of NIECE and VD
WIN (victory) in or ‘invading’ LEFT (port) G (gulf) – G for gulf doesn’t appear in Chambers, but it is in Collins
A reversal (‘turned up’) of LEEK (‘veggie’) round NN (middle letters of Ronnie)
MORTAr (light infantry piece) without the last letter or ‘cut down’ + L (first letter or ‘front’ of lancer)
DIE and GO are two synonyms for the slang word ‘choke’
MET (Metropolitan police force) round E (drug)
A C (first letter or ‘bit’ of cocaine) in or ‘snorted by’ alternate letters (‘on occasion’) of bLoKe
What a joy. I agree with B&J’s assessment that Harry has combined his trademark clueing with a clever but unobtrusive theme which gradually becomes apparent as you work through the solve. Brilliant stuff.
Many thanks to Hoskins and to B&J.
Found this extremely gentle by Hoskins standards (both difficulty and rudeness-wise) and whizzed through it in around 10 minutes.
Spotted the theme about halfway through and was impressed that so many thematic entries could be included.
Clueing was as precise as ever.
Thanks to Hoskins and B&J
Thanks both. A rarity that I spotted the theme early, which assisted, though I did not know all included, but I do wonder if they are all British
Thanks Hoskins and BnJ
TFO @ 3 I thought that initially, but on checking it turns out that Dave Allen was born in Dublin.
That was fun. I wondered for a moment if they were all going to be one half of a double act.
Quite a feat of setting although I have to confess to not knowing a couple of the people named – Rhona Cameron & Chris Morris. Like our reviewers, I hadn’t previously come across the abbreviation ‘mack’ and needed to check on the Irish body of water.
Thanks to Hoskins, particularly for the reminder of Dave Allen, and to B&J for both the review and for filling in the gaps in my knowledge of comedians.
Brilliant! Now why didn’t I spot the theme? The answer is that I was in a rush so didn’t even think about it. Annoyed with self. Many thanks to Hoskins and theme-spotters par excellence B&J.
There’s also Tom Allen who is British
The theme emerged about half way through; I might have missed it had it not been Tuesday in the Indy. I agree, not too obvious, but not requiring too much specialist knowledge, even if I didn’t know all the comedians. Yes, it was good to be reminded of Dave ALLEN (sorry, but don’t know Tom) again.
I don’t think ‘hot tea’, ‘pekoe’ or not, was Peter COOK(‘s) tipple unfortunately.
Thanks to Hoskins and B&J
Lovely to be able to select a set of 16 themed surnames every one of which can be represented as something completely different – with a pass given to CAMERON with the nounal PM reference. Very nicely put together.
Thanks Hoskins and B&J
Superb
And we spotted the theme, unusually
Thanks to Hoskins and Bertandjoyce
Great stuff Harry, I loved this and echo the thoughts of our bloggers.
Favourite purely for sentimental reasons was LAUREL.
Thanks both.
One of the things I admire most about Hoskins is his sense of humour as seen in his very clever surfaces like BASEST, DIEGO, and LACK. But my love of humour apparently isn’t deep enough because I didn’t recognize most of the comedians in this crossword and I had no chance to twig the theme. Thanks to both.
Many thanks to the reviewsome twosome for the blog and to all who solved and commented.
I’ll be back two weeks’ today with a medium difficulty, korma-spiced puzzle, but until then it only remains for me to say goodnight and goodluck to all. 🙂
Oops – did I say two weeks! I meant 13 days on the 28th! 🙂
Well, I more or less completed this – didn’t know MACK – but I totally forgot to check for a theme and didn’t spot it.