Clashes in four cells, four unclued lights and a string of four letters to be changed after filling the grid. There was nothing too disconcerting there and, as the founder of the Listener Oenophile outfit scanned the clues to see whether Charybdis retained his right of entry to it (of course he did – see below!), she couldn’t help noticing the number of ORs in the clues. It was ‘Praise former partner, “loor” in retrospect (5)’ that gave the game away. 
That had to be EXTOL, so that OR was producing a T. Meanwhile the other member of Dash was noticing that the enumerations given with the clues were generously those for the answers not the grid spaces, so the four clashing squares were also quickly identified.
We highlighted all those suspicious Os: ORillion, wORst, thORough, doOR, tORose, fORces,ORation, loOR, minOR, ORate, shORed, nORthermost, cORe, sORrowing, poORer and cORded and, as we solved, MERCHANT THREE TWO emerged, confirming our suspicions that the Merchant of Venice was our theme. (There aren’t that many well-known dramas which revolve around a counterfeit in a container…) That explained why all that gold was appearing in the clashes, CAUCUS clashing with LIGNIN, CICUTA clashing with SAUBAS, SAUGER clashing with TIN FISH, and UNGAUGED clashing with MAGS. Gold was clearly not the casket to choose, with Au giving way to its alloy components Ni, Ag, Cu and Tin, neatly leaving real words in both directions.
What about the string of four letters to be changed. Ah, it had to be BLACK GOLD since Bassanio wisely chose the LEAD CASKET finding Portia’s ‘counterfeit’ inside it. The nerdy part of Dash reminds us that Shakespeare could use the word to mean a non-fraudulent as well as a fraudulent imitation, so here it can properly mean the PORTRAIT of PORTIA. We went for the latter, since PORTIA is the subject of the counterfeit and she but not PORTRAIT fits into the casket.
The clueing was neat and fair throughout, and not too tricky once the gimmicks had been identified, with 37a and 40a perhaps delaying us most. We resolved 40a “Dope boring German and not judged (8)” as UNGAUGED (“not judged”) from GAUGE inside UND, without being sure what GAUGE and “Dope” had to do with each other. (The tempting alternative UNGORGED with Or rather than Au dropping out didn’t satisfy the definition.) 37a “Minor electronic faults failing new article (4)” with a pattern I?EM had to be ITEM defined as “article”, but the wordplay wass obscure. We were tempted to define a MITE as a minor electronic “bug” but that doesn’t really get us where we need to be. Until that is we tidied up our message letters and realised that we needed two OR>T’s in a row, so MINOR>MINT + E(lectronic) – N(ew) “faults” (anagrind).
Overall this was a thematically rich compilation, and most enjoyable, so many thanks indeed to Charybdis.
P.S. Alcohol? He started with ‘liquor’. ‘Iodine found in mash, maybe and liquor (8)’ giving us POTATION. Then it was ‘Spirits, one of them with hint of noyau (4)’ giving GINN. ‘Mull fruit, in addition to consuming first of alcohol in ecstasy (9)’ gave us PLUMDAMAS. No wonder he was ‘Drunk, downing last of beer perhaps felt pins and needles (8)’ (completely pickled!) Cheers, Charybdis.
(This blog is provided by DASH (Chalicea and Vagans) as a joint continuation of those by the Vagans and the Numpties.)