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18d: Art employed briefly in play’s titular event (7)

The letters I have are T - M - E - T. It looks as though the answer should be TEMPEST (referencing Shakespeare’s play), but I can’t see why. Please can someone shed any light on it?

'Art' in the wordplay is the second person indicative of the verb 'to be' (as in 'thou art'), so "[thou] art employed briefly" translates to "[thou] tempest" ('to temp' being to work as a temp).

Thank you!

I also didn't understand 18d. I've ground to a halt with half to go, finding this too hard to be much fun but will persevere a little longer. This would help give some first letters:

Dives underworld figure runs guarded by animal (9).
Don't have any letters.

This might also help.
55a Like unhealthy foods around large mouth, mostly? (9)
Ends in 'c'.

Calorific. like unhealthy foods. Ca, circa, around, L, large and Orific(e), mouth mostly/last letter cut.

Thanks Malone.
I see I forgot to give the clue number to my earlier query, it's 5a: Dives underworld figure runs guarded by animal (9).

Strangelybrown, the answer to 5a is PLUTOCRAT, but the parsing is very convoluted. DIVES (pronounced DY-VEES) is Latin for "a rich man", and is often used in the context of "Dives and Lazarus". This provides the definition (PLUTOCRAT). The underworld figure is PLUTO. Runs is R (as in cricket), "guarded by" (ie surrounded by) CAT (animal). Thus: PLUTO C(R)AT.

Hope this helps.

StrangelyBrown, glad I could help. I hadn't noticed your 5A query - I tend to read from the bottom of a thread!

Thanks MadWoman, never heard of that definition, what a pig of a clue.