12a. Farcical author king makes crosser?
TRAVERSER
Parse? I sort of get it... Reference to "PL Travers" (was she know for her farces though?). Also , why the question mark at the end?
The author is Ben Travers and the king would be R but that doesn't account for the E, so maybe the ? indicates that it's a homophone and so works if you say it out loud, but not when you read it?