A rather theatrical Tuesday offering…
‘Quirky’ describes Hamilton’s style, and today’s puzzle fits that description.
The theme was obvious from the off and I found all this above-board and accurate for him; he can sometimes play a bit fast-and-loose with the rules (whatever they are) but this was as fair as he gets. And very entertaining.
A warm hand, if not quite a standing ovation.
| Across | ||
| 1 | ENCORE | Once more performing without little Maureen? Yes (6) |
| Anagram (‘performing’) of ONCE moRE, without MO (‘little Maureen’), the anagram fodder on double duty as part of def. | ||
| 4 | CIRCLE | One’s friends move around seated area (6) |
| Triple definition. | ||
| 8 | ABSTAIN | Keep away from type of blood spot (7) |
| AB (‘blood type’) + STAIN (‘spot’). | ||
| 9 | QUARTET | Four playing to measure extra time (7) |
| QUART (‘measure’) + E[xtra] T[ime]. | ||
| 11 | CREAM SLICE | Same 4 demolished cake (5,5) |
| Anagram (‘demolished’) of SAME, CIRCLE (being the answer to 4a). | ||
| 12 | AVER | Swear it’ll be found in Faversham (4) |
| Hidden in ‘fAVERsham’. | ||
| 13 | DELVE | Search for girl clutching meal ticket (5) |
| DEE (a ‘girl’) surrounds L[uncheon] V[oucher]. Whatever happened to them? | ||
| 14 | LOCH NESS | Scottish location famous for its adaptable mentors! (4,4) |
| An anagram (‘adaptable’) of MENTORS gives us the (in)famous Loch Ness MONSTER. | ||
| 16 | NARRATOR | Decay on Scottish island upset commentator (8) |
| Reversal (‘upset’) of ROT + ARRAN (‘Scottish island’). | ||
| 18 | LINES | Crocodiles’ tracks (5) |
| Double def., ‘crocodile’ being a walking line, usually of children. | ||
| 20 | See 6 | |
| 21 | FILIBUSTER | Go on and on speaking of young girl and boy (10) |
| Homophone of FILLY (‘young girl’) + BUSTER (boy’s name). | ||
| 23 | SINATRA | Artisan turned performer (7) |
| Straight anagram. | ||
| 24 | CARRIER | Conveyor belt to airline (7) |
| Double def. The ‘belt’ doesn’t seem to me to be doing very much here. | ||
| 25 | TATLER | Gossip one time too many for society magazine (6) |
| Chambers tells us that ‘tatler’ is a former spelling of ‘tattler’, so take one ‘T[ime]’ out of the latter. | ||
| 26 | STALLS | Compartments are unlikely on board (6) |
| TALL (‘unlikely’, as in ‘tall story’) in SS (or ‘aboard ship’). | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | EMBER | The remainder of last month (5) |
| Last letters of DecEMBER. Or indeed September & November, though December is clearly the month intended. | ||
| 2 | CATCALL | Players don’t want this at 6, 20 from jazz fan (7) |
| As an actor, you don’t want to be ‘cat-called’ at the ‘curtain’ (6). A ‘cat’ is a jazz fan, so his ‘call’ (20) might be so defined. Slightly subtler than it looked, this. | ||
| 3 | REINSPECT | Take another look at limit on first pupil in group (9) |
| REIN (to ‘limit’) + 1st letter of Pupil in SECT (‘group’). | ||
| 5 | INURE | Toughen up one sister, maybe, not second (5) |
| 1 + NURsE (‘sister’, perhaps) without S[econd]. | ||
| 6, 20 | CURTAIN CALL | Summons to return for screen appeal (7,4) |
| CURTAIN (‘screen’) + CALL (‘appeal’). | ||
| 7 | ELEVENSES | Uneven steps after team break (9) |
| Odd letters of ‘StEpS’ after ELEVEN (‘team’). | ||
| 10 | TITLE ROLE | Legal ownership requires duty to lead (5,4) |
| TITLE (‘legal ownership’) + ROLE (ones ‘duty’). | ||
| 13 | DRAMATIST | Pinter, say, to start amid confusion (9) |
| Anagram (‘confusion’) of START AMID. | ||
| 15 | CELEBRANT | Storm after A-lister takes charge of ceremony (9) |
| RANT after CELEB. | ||
| 17 | RELIANT | They made Robin dependent (7) |
| Ref. the the 3-wheeler Reliant Robin, my first car. Don’t mock, now. I’ve heard them all. I was only 16, which was sort of the point. | ||
| 19 | NOSTRIL | Opening whereby crooked personality avoids PAYE (7) |
| Anagram (‘crooked’) of ‘peRSONaLITy’ minus the letters of PAYE. | ||
| 21 | FARCE | Comedy at distant church (5) |
| FAR + C[hurch] of E[ngland]. | ||
| 22 | EVENS | It’s 50/50 First Lady adopts new style (5) |
| EVE (‘first lady’) + N[ew] S[tyle]. | ||
*anagram
Thanks both. A bit slow to start with me but it worked out fine in the end.
Quite enjoyed it and impressive to get in so many references.
Also pleasing to see circle and stalls in their correct respective positions.
Thanks to Hamilton and Grant. Enjoyable. I struggled with the LV in DELVE, CREAM SLICE (new to me), and the parsing of NARRATOR, and my LOI was LINES. I did know RELIANT from a recent puzzle.
Thanks for a reasonable cryptic for a US solver. CREAM SLICE and RELIANT were new to me but the crossings made them obvious; I wavered between LINES and lanes for “crocodile tracks” and guessed wrongly, never knowing that “crocodile” meant “walking line.” Having an overall theme helps and that should have steered me to LINES.
I thought the triple definition of 4a was excellent
Thanks Hamilton and Grant
An enjoyable solve where I subconsciously recognised a number of theatrical terms during it but failed to consciously put them all together to form the theme. There did seem to be a bit of the subtle art going on, especially in CURTAIN CALL and CATCALL, and some distinctly British terms LV (which I’d come across in other puzzles) and the RELIANT Robin (which I hadn’t). Assume that CREAM SLICE is a term for what I know is a vanilla slice (unfortunately still like ’em !)
Thought that SINATRA was cleverly and concisely clued – knew it was an anagram immediately but certainly didn’t immediately get it (needing all of the crossers in the end). CIRCLE was very neatly ‘triple-clued’ and also liked the surface and subtraction anagram used with the subtly defined NOSTRIL.
Finished in the SW corner with CARRIER (where I guess the ‘belt’ was put in to help the ‘arrival hall’ surface of the clue), STALLS and CELEBRANT as the last few in.