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Thanks, alwayspuzzled. I was missing the bleeding obvious - leaving real words. Over fifty years of puzzling - (started on the Daily Mail with my dad at twelve) - will I never learn?

Nearly 60 years for me Kenhiggs but like you I started with the Daily Mail with my dad when I was 12.

So chuffed to hear that, alwayspuzzled! and I'm still helping my 90 year old mother-in-law with the Daily Mail - she's bright as a button. It's not as crap as it seems at first glance, but some clues ARE a bit dodgy 😁

Thanks to will37's help in discovering the play, I managed to complete this (correctly, I think!). However I just don't understand an unusually large number of, mostly, the cryptic parts of the answers in this one -

22A: provided at college?
26A: Theatric Nobelist stays quiet?
30A: shut up in a sea? I was looking for a SH somewhere....
35A: why a fine lady?
36A: what bird is out of place?
3D: my answer is a noun, whereas nasty is an adjective. And while I get the tear gas part, how does the rest of it work?
12D: what has the answer got to do with a greenhouse?

I can't remember ever having so many problems with a Speccie's answers.

By the way, I was intrigued to see a couple of you talking about starting with parents at the age of 12. Same for me too, 50 years ago. I still remember the first clue I solved by myself - Dutch cheese made backwards (4). So easy now, but I was so pleased with myself then!

Thank you all for your help from time to time. It is so annoying not fully understanding an answer even if you have it correct.

26 Pinter, Harold Pinter, was the theatric Nobelist. Remove the P, music notation for Quiet.

It's hard to help with the others as you've given only some parts of the clues. For 12 D, Lean-to was the greenhouse.

22a soup ...so = provided + up ( up at college /oxford etc)
30a st is a synonym too for shut up...
35a idler is synonym of fine..
36a the bird is PLover ...lose the PLace....
3d En is a nut
12d lean to is a greenhouse ... (sort of) with P(plan) inside

3 D. You can have a Nasty, noun - Chambers defines it as 'someone unpleasant'.
30 St, can mean 'shut up', be quiet.

22 Course provided at college - Soup. Provided = So and Up, = at college, university.

Thank you all again. Obviously an amateur!