A warm welcome to Tack. (That may of course get warmer or cooler as the puzzle progresses.)
Preamble: Solutions are to be entered jigsaw fashion, wherever they will go. A word of at least three letters must be removed from clues before solving. Omitted words hint at a series of successful plays first performed in the theatre in 1983, forming a pattern which the clue order must follow. Otherwise, clues are ordered alphabetically by their solutions.
The series is known by three words; the first word appears as many times in the grid as each of two individuals has performed it at the venue. Changing two letters in the filled grid will reveal their surnames which solvers must highlight, together with a viable choice of the three-word series name (27 cells in total).
So, clues are ordered alphabetically by their solutions except where they aren’t – very helpful.
When it comes to a jigsaw, I thought that the clues (to be solved cold) would be easier than I found them – at least to start with. Still, there were only two 9-letter answers, and GOLDFINCH was easy, as were three of the four 4-letter answers: ECHO, JIVE & NODS. It looked like GOLDFINCH in column 3 with NODS intersecting in row 4 was a fair bet, supported by LOVELIHEAD across row 3 and ANECDOTIST down column 1.
As more answers were slotted in here & there it seemed like the clue ordering was loosely alphabetical but with lots of tweaks along the way, too many for me to discern any pattern, so that would have to wait. There were quite a number of uses of some device or other to omit first and last letters in the wordplay – ‘bossy girl discovered’ for (m)ADA(m), ‘endless trip’ for (h)OLIDA(y), ‘unlimited mushrooms’ for (p)ORCIN(i), and finally ‘stripping game’ for (l)ACROSS(e) – which I always find difficult, and even harder are Spoonerisms: I challenge anyone to solve ASYNARTETE cold.
OK. Grid filled, time for a break, pick it up tomorrow.
I thought about the theatre and plays from the 1980’s, trilogies maybe, or Play for Today on the BBC, but that didn’t really fit and was the wrong decade anyway. So … pause, take a breath, and don’t become blinkered. I puzzled over the endgame for a little while longer and decided to scan the grid. I quickly spotted FOUR in column 2 and SEVEN in the penultimate column, then ONE near the middle of the fourth row – that was all I needed to set me on my way. O’SULLIVAN and HENDRY followed quite swiftly, then I went for a walk before lunch, still thinking about snooker and the pattern in the clue order.
I hadn’t been out long, and – because clue 2 was the last one I’d sorted out (the wordplay for ACROSS) – Maria was on my mind, and that is associated with black; and that clue is preceded by one where setter is redundant, red of course. And there we have it: red black red black red black and so on, finishing with the “colours” yellow, green, brown, blue, pink, and finally the black, to achieve the maximum break of 147.
I think the trio of occurences of ONE in the grid was an unnecessary flourish, but no doubt kenmac remembers all those matches at the Crucible Theatre over the decades. Thanks, Tack: a deftly worded preamble (a series of plays … performed … theatre) successfully misdirected me for some time after I had filled the grid – but not too long …
| Clue | Answer | Wordplay | |
| ● | Cold answer can faze [setter] at first (5) | ALOOF | A(nswer) LOO (can, lavatory) F(aze) |
| ● | Stripping game [Maria] brings over (6) | ACROSS | (l)ACROSS(e) (game) |
| ● | Scottie and [Ant] manipulated raconteur (10) | ANECDOTIST | [SCOTTIE AND]* |
| ● | Navy regularly has [Friday] rum, bossy girl discovered (6) | ARMADA | (h)A(s) R(u)M (m)ADA(m) (bossy girl) |
| ● | Guard perhaps beat hill [mist] (6) | CAPTOR | CAP (beat) TOR (hill) |
| ● | Stanza, a [country] metalworker, compiled crosswords for Spooner (10) | ASYNARTETE | Spoonerism: A TINNER (metalworker) SET (compiled crosswords) |
| ● | Returning home, [admiral] suffers somewhat with leak (6) | EFFUSE | (hom)E SUFFE(rs) rev. |
| ● | [Spot] wound up Conservative painting senior journalist (6) | COILED | C(onservative) OIL (painting) ED (senior journalist) |
| ● | Seven edgy fences smoothed [carpet] (6) | EVENED | (s)EVEN ED(gy) |
| ● | Scottish cheese [pudding] cut by Dutch nationalist (6) | DUNLOP | LOP (cut) after DU(tch) N(ationalist) |
| ● | Brightly shone [light] aided Rita arresting Republican crook (10) | IRRADIATED | [AIDED RITA]* around R(epublican) |
| ● | Repeat [tie] with Hearts dividing English county (4) | ECHO | H(earts) in E(nglish) CO(unty) |
| ● | First person in France to introduce four [square] dance (4) | JIVE | JE (first person, I, Fr) around IV (four) |
| ● | [Cat] competition opening after the end of June (5) | EVENT | VENT (opening) after (Jun)E |
| ● | He’ll [tape] a video about rare beauty (10) | LOVELIHEAD | [HE’LL … A VIDEO]* |
| ● | [Watch] grand elderly fellow measure pecker (9) | GOLDFINCH | G(rand) OLD (elderly) F(ellow) INCH (measure) |
| ● | City meet dinked [cross] before halfway leading to Haaland’s second (6) | MEDINA | ME(et) DIN(ked) (H)A(aland) |
| ● | Confused [swan]: it screamed “quack” once (10) | MEDICASTER | [IT SCREAMED]* |
| ● | Negative [Leicester] detective signals agreement (4) | NODS | NO (negative) DS (detective) |
| ● | New setter has to accommodate outsize [bear] once a month in France (6) | NIVÔSE | N(ew) I’VE (setter has) around OS (outsize) |
| ● | Two priests on mountain [route] in Greece (6) | PELION | P(riest) ELI (priest) ON |
| ● | Family flying [economy] over Rhode Island on endless trip East (9) | ORIOLIDAE | O(ver) RI (Rhode Island) (h)OLIDA(y) (trip) E(ast) |
| ● | Stop former lover leaving [giant] bomb (7) | PLOSIVE | EXPLOSIVE (bomb) ¬ EX (former lover) |
| ● | Bottom [box] of The i Paper, as it were, displays poisonous plants (7) | OURARIS | OUR (of The i Paper, as it were) ARIS (bottom, arse, Cockney sl) |
| ● | Revolutionary dull sulphur [brick] that helps store nuclear waste (6) | SYNROC | CORNY< (dull) S(ulphur) |
| ● | [Mark] slates heartless heathens (4) | PANS | PA(ga)NS (heathens) |
| ● | Limitation of inheritance in law: track the old [devils] (6) | TAILYE | TAIL (track) YE (the, old) |
| ● | Flash unknown artist allowed [coffee] outside (6) | RAYLET | Y (unknown) in RA (artist) LET (allowed) |
| ● | Charm [delicious] maiden after TV special (6) | TELESM | M(aiden) after TELE (TV) S(pecial) |
| ● | Enthralled by [Russian] aeroplane I saw over Italian city (5) | SIENA | (aeropl)ANE I S(aw) all< |
| ● | I will leave spoilt tandoori [chicken] giving off smell (7) | ODORANT | [TANDOORI]* ¬ I |
| ● | Compound has unlimited mushrooms, [marijuana] and ecstasy (6) | ORCINE | (p)ORCIN(i) (mushrooms) E(cstasy) |
| ● | A company in Scottish mountain society fires [cook] (7) | BEACONS | A CO(mpany) in BENS (Scottish mountain) S(ociety) |
| ● | Fruit cake changed [unhappy] atmosphere at last (5) | ACKEE | [CAKE]* (atmospher)E |
| ● | Noughties novel [rose] sometime later (6, two words) | ONE DAY | double definition {ref. David Nicholls, 2009} |
| ● | Coaches with a [dismal] German girl band run off (10) | WAGONETTES | W(ith) A G(erman) RONETTES (girl band) ¬ R(un) |
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