Second or third puzzle of the year from eXternal – calendar year & IQ year aren’t perfectly aligned.
Preamble: First and last letters in extra words in fourteen down clues give two works. Words from a related work are identified by extra words to be removed from twenty across clues, in the order they appear in the work but with nine omissions. The omitted nine are identified by unclued entries; solvers should use each one of these (approximately) to portray the subject of the work, appropriately positioned around a key figure, in the final grid.
I don’t recall having much difficulty with the clues – the answers I didn’t manage to get from the definition could be figured out from the wordplay and then checked in Chambers.
Once I had about half the extra words in the down clues that was enough for me to take a stab at the “two works” which proved to be CLOSE EVERY DOOR and ANY DREAM WILL DO, the second of which led me quite quickly to Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (a musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice in case you didn’t know). The extra words in the across clues weren’t too hard to pick out either, especially when it became clear that the only one that didn’t have an extra word was the first one.
My list of extra words began cabbage, Betty, Maria, … but I could see no connection. For a while I had been thinking quizzically about “are identified by” in the preamble, then the light bulb came on: cabbage white (later reallocated to Christmas), brown Betty, black Maria, …. So I looked up the song in the musical and soon had a list of colours from Joseph’s Coat then set about matching them to the extra words. (I should have paid more attention to “in the order they appear in the work” – that would’ve saved me quite a bit of time.)
Once that was done (or so I thought) I made a start on the unclued entries. Some were immediate – peach MELBA, rose BOWL, red DEVIL (!), olive DRAB – others less so, but when I had the two entries in the bottom left of the grid unfilled (_AGE_ and _E_L) and two colours: orange and blue I was stuck. Time for a rethink. Move red from DEVIL to cabbage and replace with blue, then assign yellow to PAGES and orange to PEEL.
Most of the associations are confirmed in Chambers, some online. Nearly there. I’d spotted J_OSEPH in the central column a while back and so it was straightforward to adorn him in his DREAMCOAT, and highlight it for good measure.
The title? Joseph was an interpreter of dreams – that was the easy bit. Consulted with my crossword buddy about undercover … Genesis tells us that when Joseph met his brothers, they didn’t recognize him because he was dressed in Egyptian royal linen, clean-shaven, and spoke through an interpreter. (Also they assumed he was dead.) Will that do?
Thanks, eXternal. A bit fiddly towards the end, but quite entertaining.
The list, with unclued entries in CAPITALS. In normal usage, sometimes the colour comes second.
red cabbage
yellow PAGES
green LABEL
brown Betty
scarlet WOMAN
black Maria
ochre money
peach MELBA
ruby port
olive DRAB
violet shrinking
fawn deer
lilac kingfisher
gold digging
chocolate Labrador
mauve mallow
cream cheese
crimson Harvard
silver screen
rose BOWL
azure Microsoft
lemon grass
russet apple
grey AREA
purple patch
white Christmas
pink elephants
orange PEEL
blue DEVIL
| No. | Clue | ExtraS | Answer | Wordplay | |
| Across | |||||
| 1 | Despicable people, one hundred in total (4) | SCUM | C (one hundred) in SUM (total) | ||
| 5 | As said, [cabbage] I’d cut upset stomach (8, 2 words) | cabbage | UT DICTUM | [I’D CUT]* TUM (stomach) | |
| 10 | [Betty] bothered Parlophone (lacking work) with number for wind instrument (9) | Betty | ALPENHORN | [PARLOPHONE ¬ OP (work) N(umber)]* | |
| 12 | Adult [Maria] with young goat turned around West Indian tree (4) | Maria | DIKA | A(dult) KID (young goat) all< | |
| 13 | British [money] borne in comparatively basic clipper (6) | money | BARBER | B(ritish) in BARER (comparatively basic) | |
| 14 | According to Ed, desert troop is east of Australian [port] (5) | port | ABAND | BAND (troop) after A(ustralian) | |
| 15 | [Shrinking] trifle as Jack demolished Indonesian meal (9) | shrinking | RIJSTAFEL | [TRIFLE AS J(ack)]* | |
| 18 | Stare with open mouth as monkey follows group of [deer] (4) | deer | GAPE | APE (monkey) after G(roup of) | |
| 20 | [Kingfisher] beers around back of auditorium for dancing-girls (5) | kingfisher | ALMES | ALES (beers) around (auditoriu)M | |
| 23 | Away from outsiders, club had fun [digging] party in Hawaii (4) | digging | LUAU | (c)LU(b) (h)A(d) (f)U(n) | |
| 24 | [Labrador] disoriented lunatic with roar in sensory organ (11) | Labrador | INTRAOCULAR | [LUNATIC ROAR]* | |
| 26 | Particle inside some [mallow] so nasty (5) | mallow | MESON | (so)ME SO N(asty) | |
| 27 | Curse and intensely dislike [cheese] limitlessly (4) | cheese | OATH | (l)OATH(e) (intensely dislike) | |
| 29 | Applaud [Harvard] study on introduction to baking oatmeal cake (9) | Harvard | CLAPBREAD | CLAP (applaud) READ (study) after B(aking) | |
| 33 | [Screen] sailor holding my retracted surgical device (6) | screen | TROCAR | TAR (sailor) around COR< (my) | |
| 34 | [Microsoft] massive once more with new changes (5) | Microsoft | ENORM | [MORE N(ew)]* | |
| 35 | I’m surprised taking in current [grass] state (4) | grass | OHIO | OHO (I’m surprised) around I (current) | |
| 36 | Crowds around flash [Apple] bigwigs vacated (4) | apple | MOBS | MO (moment, flash) B(igwig)S | |
| 37 | Strip outworn [patch] and awkwardly unpaper middle of wall (9) | patch | UNAPPAREL | [UNPAPER (w)AL(l)]* | |
| 38 | Army reserve come ashore [Christmas], taking base in West Croatia (8) | Christmas | LANDWEHR | LAND (come ashore) E (base) in W(est) HR (Croatia) | |
| 39 | [Elephants] now and then near lea and stream in India (4) | elephants | NALA | N(e)A(r) L(e)A | |
| Down | |||||
| 2 | Notice when afternoon is in for cloudy covering (5) | CLOAK | CLOCK (notice) with A(fternoon) replacing C(loudy) | ||
| 3 | Explosive let off in Wuppertal disturbed geological formation (6) | UPWRAP | [WUPPERTAL]* ¬ [LET]* | ||
| 4 | Bearing weapons mostly with limb kept low (8) | UNDERARM | UNDER ARM(s) (bearing weapons) | ||
| 6 | Fine [czarina] wearing crown somewhere in Hungary (5) | C | A | TOKAJ | OK (fine) in TAJ (crown) |
| 7 | Potter strikes one basilisk’s head after prompt by every [leprechaun] (7, 2 words) | L | N | CUE BALL | B(asilisk) after CUE (prompt) ALL (every) |
| 8 | Gutted tilapia are covering very [oily] griddle (4) | O | Y | TAVA | T(ilapi)A A(re) around V(ery) |
| 9 | Honey, [standard] Dutch blend (4) | S | D | MELD | MEL (honey) D(utch) |
| 11 | [Easier] approach adopted in suitable practice requiring skill (7, 2 words) | E | R | FINE ART | NEAR (approach) in FIT (suitable) |
| 13 | Vehicle turned up carrying one [expensive] genetically modified burger (6, 2 words) | E | E | BIG MAC | CAB< (vehicle) around I (one) GM (genetically modified) |
| 16 | Aldea’s dry well filled by eccentric that’s discharged [vodka] (4) | V | A | SECO | SO (well) around E(ccentri)C |
| 17 | Comparatively attractive escort under large [elm] (6) | E | M | LUSHER | USHER (escort) after L(arge) |
| 19 | [Review] fairly exposed area on north-eastern transport route (7) | R | W | AIR-LANE | (f)AIRL(y) A(rea) NE (north-eastern) |
| 21 | Afrikaner encampment left and right cooping each [Yemeni] up (4) | Y | I | LAER | L(eft) R(ight) around EA(ch) |
| 22 | Several cut short operations [derail] plant (8) | D | L | SUNDROPS | SUNDR(y) (several) OPS (operations) |
| 25 | Binding on dead [owl] gradually diminishing towards the end (7) | O | L | TAPERED | TAPE (binding) RE (on) D(ead) |
| 28 | TV presenter ignoring harpist originally [obsessed] about encore (6) | O | D | ANCORA | ANCHOR (TV presenter) ¬ H(arpist) A(bout) |
| 30 | Record very hard [ratio] involving a Hebrew measure (5) | R | O | EPHAH | EP (record) HH (very hard) around A |
| 31 | Don’t stop stupid person (4) | GOON | GO ON (don’t stop) | ||
| 32 | Socially acceptable having run away from idle person (4) | DONE | DRONE (idle person) ¬ R(run) | ||
When I saw the “two works” I was sure they must be song titles, so consulted my wife, who actually remembers these things and instantly named the musical — which confirmed my beginning suspicion that extra words in across clues hinted at colours. As noted by HG, matching words to colours was fiddly, but became clearer when I made a spreadsheet listing the key song’s 29 (!) colours in order. WHITE also started here with CABBAGE and then moved to ELEPHANTS, with CHRISTMAS coming third. CHOCOLATE MALLOW was another trap for the unwary, i.e. me. But very satisfying when it all came out.
Many thanks to eXternal and HolyGhost.
This was an enjoyable puzzle, thanks to eXternal for this – and in particular for matching colours to the extra words in the order they appear in the song. This helped to remove the ambiguity around, e.g., red and white (and label and elephants). I found the title a bit cryptic, but I guess Snazzy Dresser might have been a bit of a giveaway. Well done to HG for finding the many colours for the coat – a nice touch. My pen only has black, but as I dream in black and white I’ll still give myself 9.5/10 this week.
It took me the longest time to see the connection to colours in the extra words, which seems crazy in retrospect. Very grateful they were in the right order, as Betty will always be Blue for me, the devil red and the label yellow. Thanks to eXternal for an enjoyable if ambiguous challenge, and to HolyGhost for disentangling.