PQ. Could you let us have the no. of letters and any letters you have which are crossing and certain. Why? Well, your possible answer might be "Sting" (5) or "the Sting"(3,5).
Robin Starveling is a character in William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream (1595), one of the Rude Mechanicals who plays the part of Moonshine in their performance of Pyramus and Thisbe
Thanks for posting this, and for the answer. This had me scratching my head too. Should The Times get any more obscure it could be back to a lesser crossword.