tpg (Anthony Barra) has kindly provided a puzzle for the York gathering…if you want to solve the puzzle before reading the blog, it can be found here.
Some ‘Special Instructions’ are supplied as well:
“To support your solve, this puzzle includes a classic British film’s:
– title
– writer
– director
– lead actors
– and source material
– along with a memorable line of dialogue”
After a couple of initial passes, the grid started to fill up gradually, and the first PDM came when I got (David) LEAN at 5D – well signposted as the definition is ‘director’, despite a cheeky bit of misdirection with ‘German’!
Unfortunately that didn’t help much, as even this bear of relatively little film knowledge knows a few David Lean films: A Passage to India, Great Expectations, Oliver Twist, Doctor Zhivago. But I couldn’t see any of those words appearing in the grid…
Pressing on, I eventually got to Noel COWARD appearing at 18D – but this time defined as a playwright, which is what I would automatically associate with him, along with his witty and pithy songs, like ‘Mad Dogs and Englishmen’, and a cameo appearance in The Italian Job.
By this point the grid was almost full, and all the thematic material I seemed to have was these two names – no title, no stars, no source material, no dialogue.
It took a little Wiki-oogling research to establish that Lean and Coward collaborated on a few films around the time of the Second World War, including In Which We Serve, Blithe Spirit, This Happy Breed and Brief Encounter.
And the last one triggered a few face-palm moments as I realised that:
- Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson, the lead actors, are name-checked in 18D and 2D respectively
- Coward’s one-act play ‘Still Life‘ (17D) was the ‘source material’ for the screenplay, adapted by Coward himself
- the title was hidden in plain sight as an acrostic in the first letters of Across clues
- those unches around the edge – which should have had Nina alarm bells ringing in my head from the start – contained the line ‘NOT EVEN LIFE LASTS VERY LONG‘, said by Johnson, as Laura Jesson
- the preamble says the PUZZLE contains all these items, not the GRID, as I misinterpreted it…this needed some thinking ‘outside of the box’!
I have to confess to never having watched it (cue a Bateman ‘The Man Who admitted to never having watched Brief Encounter’ cartoon), but I was familiar with the title, Lean, Coward and the two stars. I am sure many others will be aficionados who sussed it out as soon as they saw Lean, Coward/Howard and Celia. And others more observant than me might have looked for the Acrostic straight off…
Anyway, I think all that remains is for me to thank tpg for an entertaining (and educational, for your blogger) diversion, and I trust all is clear below.
| Across | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clue No | Solution / Entry | Clue (definition underlined)
Logic/parsing |
||
| 7A | TYPO | Boo-boo? Yep, on vacation slicing tomato when exhausted (4)
T_O (TomatO, exhausted of inner letters) around (sliced by) YP (YeP, vacated of inner letter) [the first words of each Across clue form an acrostic giving the thematic film’s title] |
||
| 8A | THE LIKES OF | Representatives such as Rocky ok with filth, see? (3,5,2)
anag, i.e. rocky, of OK with FILTH SEE |
||
| 10A | ORNITHIC | In distress, tiny tailless choir of birds (8)
anag, i.e. in distress, of TIN( |
||
| 11A | HANKIE | Endless gratitude to friend essentially providing nose rag (6)
( |
||
| 12A | NYSE | Financial market regularly tense: yen backsliding (4)
reversed (backsliding) regular letters from ‘tEnSe YeN’ [the N of the solution is the start of a clockwise perimetral Nina, giving the thematic memorable line of dialogue] |
||
| 13A | BANANA PEEL | Eel, following boy’s lead, advanced near grandma with papa chasing yellowjacket? (6,4)
B (leading letter of Boy) + A (Advanced, as in A-level) + NANA (grandma) + P (papa, P, phonetic alphabet) + EEL |
||
| 15A | ERASE | Nullify rule in facility (5)
E_ASE (facility) around R (rule) |
||
| 16A | REPEL | Chase away salesman, rejecting terms of legal loophole (5)
REP (representative, salesman) + EL (LE, terminal letters of legaL loopholE, rejected) |
||
| 19A | GREENSTONE | Oddball enters wearing departed’s Māori jade (10)
G_ONE (departed) around (wearing) REENST (anag, i.e. oddball, of ENTERS) |
||
| 21A | LIMA | Unwrapped ACME’s variety of beans (4)
( |
||
| 22A | NEEDLE | Nag Miss Lee interminably (6)
NEED (miss, want) + LE( |
||
| 24A | AMOROSOS | Tolerable Roman mainly coming back for sweet sherries (8)
SO-SO (tolerable) + ROMA( |
||
| 26A | OUTFIELDER | Extraordinary life detour defines ballplayer (10)
anag, i.e. extraordinary, of LIFE DETOUR |
||
| 27A | ISNT | Risk undressing? Nice at first; in the end it ain’t (4)
( |
||
| Down | ||||
| Clue No | Solution / Entry | Clue (definition underlined)
Logic/parsing |
||
| 1D | EYE-RHYME | Dewy web periodically gathered frost, wood and … food? (3-5)
EYE (periodic letters of ‘dEwY wEb’ + RHYME (homophone, i.e. gathered – RHYME can sound like RIME, frost) |
||
| 2D | VOCIFERATE | Cry out to Celia, gutted, if ever struggling (10)
anag, i.e. struggling, of TO + C( [the Celia in the clue being a reference to the thematic acting lead, Celia Johnson] |
||
| 3D | ETCH | Get topless and groove (4)
( |
||
| 4D | NIGHT NURSE | She’ll relieve you in the dark and barely clutch beneath the head (5,5)
NIGHT (dark) + ( |
||
| 5D | LEAN | Pick up missing debut from German director (4)
( [David Lean, our thematic director] |
||
| 6D | IODINE | Symbolically, I eat with cow (6)
IO (Greek mythology, a maiden turned into a heifer by Zeus, so cow) + DINE (eat) |
||
| 9D | EX-CONS | Some Libs freed criminals (2-4)
punning double defn. – some Liberal politicians will be former Conservatives, or EX-CONS; and freed criminals are EX-CONS; and I guess the two groups are not mutually exclusive! |
||
| 13D | BEEF SKEWER | Live a little eccentrically facing loud critique as one held to the fire, say (4,6)
BE (live) + E (a little, or first letter, of Eccentrically) next to (facing) F (forte, music, loud) + SKEWER (a negative critique, or review, of a work could be said to have skewered its subject/creator) |
||
| 14D | POPE LEO XIV | His Holiness, Pele, beginning to organize team into position (4,3,3)
PO_V (point of view, position) around PE_LE + O (beginning to organise) + XI (eleven, team) |
||
| 17D | LAMPOONS | Still Life, primarily capturing a mop with no changes, sent up in parodies (8)
L_S (primary letters of Still Life, sent up) around (capturing) AMPOON (anag, i.e. changes, of A MOP + NO) [Still Life being the thematic source material, a 1936 play by Noel Coward] |
||
| 18D | COWARD | Howard gets cast initially to play husband’s part for larger-than-life playwright (6)
( [the Howard in the clue referring to the thematic acting lead, Trevor Howard; and the Coward of the solution to the thematic writer!] |
||
| 20D | RUEFUL | Not entirely true? Full-stop: Sorry. (6)
hidden word in, i.e. not entirely all of, ‘tRUE FULl-stop’ |
||
| 23D | DEFY | Idolize heartless rebel (4)
DE( |
||
| 25D | OGRE | Frog recalled boxing hideous giant (4)
hidden word in, i.e. boxed by, ‘frOG REcalled’ |
||
Thanks a million for such a detailed blog, mc_rapper67. I’m grateful to hear about your solving process, along with your precisely parsed clue explanations. Just this morning, I learned that the film is accessible on YouTube, along with a radio play version of Coward’s “Still Life”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFI9ZC-HAbI – I’m looking forward to the latter! Again, thank you very much (and Duncan for organizing) for this exciting and fulfilling experience.
An entertaining and (for me) quite challenging puzzle from tpg, which I was pleased to be able to complete, needing only one cheeky search in Chambers for the NHO EYE-RHYME. I managed to spot the Nina and director, but searched in vain for the film title. Impressive work to tuck that away as an acrostic. The construction steals the show but special mention also for GREENSTONE, ETCH and POPE LEO XIV. Thanks tpg and mc_rapper67
I really enjoyed this, although I haven’t seen the film (maybe I’ll check it out). I knew David Lean directed it and guessed Noel Coward must’ve been involved but I had to google for the cast members. The acrostic in the across clues was really nicely done too. My favourites were THE LIKES OF (nice definition for an awkward-to-define word), AMOROSOS, EYE RHYME, LEAN and POPE LEO XIV, and OGRE, but top of the pile is BANANA PEEL for the fantastic definition “yellowjacket”. Thanks tpg & mcr
tpgrammar at #1 – thanks for your kind words, it was a pleasure to solve and blog…
And thanks to Coot and Charlie for your comments and highlighting of favourite clues…
I belatedly caught up with this after the York weekender and liked it a lot — I’ve done a few tpg puzzles but this is his best yet. Lovely theming, and the Across-tic was a nice touch 😁
Thanks tpg and MC!