| Comments on the clues |
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| 1. A Musical coat of many colours worn on stage |
| 1. | Would have been better without A so Musical had a reason to be capitalised |
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| 2. A pre-stage transformation in features? |
| 1. | Greasepaint isn't the act of doing the transformation, so this is grammatically a bit shonky. |
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| 3. Acting in loco parentis, e.g. covering for King Lear? |
| 1. | How does the solver know to ignore "loco"? | | 2. | I think this is superb, but nearly discounted it until I looked in Chambers and found that loco means crazy. | | 3. | Superbly disguised anagrind. |
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| 5. Actor's make-up applied for pageantries |
| 1. | Why is this a reverse anag? |
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| 8. Application to play a genie's part? |
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| 12. Different head physiognomy I grant with ease! (11) |
| 1. | Head physiognomy does not indicate 'p'. | | 2. | I can't vote for a clue that needs such a long explanation. |
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| 15. Doctor eating pears with pancake (11) |
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| 16. Drunken rats a'peeing on pancake! (11) |
| 1. | Nice idea, but 'on' makes no sense cryptically. |
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| 17. Eating juicy pears smeared her makeup. |
| 1. | Without redundant words 'juicy' and 'her' it would have been quite a neat clue. Shame. | | 2. | Perhaps suggests (EATING)*+(PEARS)* not (EATINGPEARS)* | | 3. | It has happened to me! |
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| 18. Fancy pants I agree, is what a traditional clown would wear? |
| 1. | A little clumsy, but worth points! | | 2. | A very nice clue sadly spoilt by an erroneous comma. | | 3. | Would have awarded more if comma hadn't been clumsily omitted after 'pants'. |
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| 19. Faulty gene is a part of one's make-up (11) |
| 1. | Clever anagram. | | 2. | Lovely surface (though truer in the plural). But "one's" isn't quite right for greasepaint e.g. I've never worn any. |
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| 20. Floppy pig ear's neat waxen stuff that's spread on hams, perhaps. |
| 1. | Like the play on 'hams' but surface reading suffers. | | 2. | Absolutely Hilarious! | | 3. | …but not eaten, I hope. |
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| 21. Gene is a part encoding make-up of character |
| 1. | Very good, but I slightly prefer 19 |
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| 22. Get arse pain – terrible – from slap. |
| 1. | Delightfully crude – well done |
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| 24. I pant frightfully after doctor agrees for theatrical application |
| 1. | "after doctoring agrees' or "after agrees doctored", but not "after doctor agrees". "Doctor agrees I pant frightfully…" would have worked. | | 2. | I'm not convinced that the imperative anagrind quite works in this position for perfect cryptic grammar |
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| 25. Is state-dependent person suffering in great slap? |
| 1. | "state-dependent person" for E is a bit of a stretch (I assume this is the E in the A B C1 C2 D E demographic classification) |
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| 26. Lay it on thick when playing part as genie? |
| 1. | Strictly speaking 'Lay it on thick' indicates a verb, not a noun. | | 2. | Best of the genie clues. |
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| 27. Make up girl's at hand, to comfort model |
| 1. | The indirect anagram is too much of a stretch for me. | | 2. | AFAIK g is not a recognised abbreviation for girl. | | 3. | Greasepaint is 'make-up', not 'make up'. Comma erroneous. |
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| 28. "Make-up" repeating as "make up" |
| 1. | Nice idea – I wonder if the make-up and make up should be switched to make the clue even better? | | 2. | Nice idea, but would have worked better grammatically had 'make up' and 'make-up' swapped places! |
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| 30. Making free gains Peter a slap |
| 1. | Best of the slap clues, though the grammar/punctuation of the cryptic reading is a little dubious |
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| 35. Review of "The Agony and the Ecstasy" at His Majesty's – time they put it on at the Palladium (11) |
| 1. | Do not comprehend explanation. |
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| 37. Shakespearian get-up? Shake 'spearian get' up! |
| 1. | Worth a point for its audacity! | | 2. | Not sure about 'get-up' as a definition, but the clue merits a mention for ingenuity and sheer cheek. | | 3. | Clever and original, and for once the exclamation mark is fully justified. Love it! | | 4. | Unconventional but a brilliant idea. Top marks. | | 5. | Jolly clever – well done | | 6. | Spearian?? |
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| 38. Show distress – time for some nose powder, perhaps (11) |
| 1. | 'greasepaint' is a 'tallowy substance', not powder (nor make-up in general). | | 2. | There are thousands of shows (tv, movie & theatre) as well as many synonyms for word "show". |
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| 40. Slap and tickle in area gets chief of police arrested |
| 1. | What work is "arrested" doing? |
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| 43. Slap is terribly exasperating if wanting kiss |
| 1. | Unfortunately 'if' spoils it. |
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| 44. Slap's exasperating when badly wanting a kiss |
| 1. | Similar to 43, 'when' spoils it. |
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| 46. Spite and endless rage involved dramatic slap. |
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| 47. Stage disguise in which Potter co-star accomodates right-hand man comfortably (11) |
| 1. | Wordplay sequence is wrong and ease does not mean comfortably. |
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| 48. Stage preparation disguising no ordinary part, perhaps |
| 1. | Good idea, but 'disguising' isn't an intransitive verb alas ('that's disguised' would have been fine instead). |
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| 50. Streep again unrecognisable in this? |
| 1. | Like the Streep connection, but not sure about unrecognisable as anagram indicator? | | 2. | There's probably a better anagrind around than 'unrecognisable' | | 3. | I think it's technically a semi&lit, but a good clue whatever you call it. | | 4. | My favourite – well done |
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| 51. The direction in which this point lies + juicy fruit + inch |
| 1. | This just doesn't make any sense at all – have a look at some guides on how cryptic clues work. | | 2. | Please take the time to look at other clues on this site and see how they work. A clue is not just a random collection of words. | | 3. | Quite possibly the most unsolvable "clue" I've ever encountered! Has its author ever seen a crossword before?! | | 4. | No definition, anagrams and assembly not very clearly clued. | | 5. | Missing a definition, anagrind and logic. | | 6. | No anagrind or definition and I never considered that a grape was a juicy fruit. |
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| 54. This could render stage actor's face in rep |
| 1. | Nice idea, but 'render' doesn't quite work for me – e.g. 'transform' better. |
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