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Thanks CandleDave and Malone!

D’oh! When the penny dropped it did so very hard. A very neat twist. Thank you, Artix.

Thank you also to Simplesimon for trying to help me, but I was too far down a warren of rabbit holes chasing wild geese in mares’ nests at that stage. Putting it aside was, as so often, the key. Standing at the ironing board this morning listening to R3 and the essential ambiguity (not the “which title” one) was suddenly illuminated.

For what it’s worth, I am going with the second title in the final grid, That seems the straightforward reading of the directions.

Late in coming to this but I'm with kitsune@73, surely the direction re "A clued down answer... ' resolves the ambiguity.
I remember the second 'actor''s performance well,and much was made of his job at the time. Was it really over 40 years ago?!

Sorry, kitsune@70

With some trepidation I note that no one seems to have been troubled by 28A.

The instruction gives me the unchecked letter but still not seeing how it parses.

28 is a double definition: old word for to obstruct and also to not obstruct (i.e. to allow)

I seem to have 23 highlighted cells - the "subject of a prize-winning on-screen performance" as interpreted by amended directions (13) and the first and last names of the player as interpreted by amended directions (4,7) with the third letter of the first and fifth of the second the same, ie 10 letters altogether: 13+10=23. Don't understand how it's 22?

Izzet, it's the players from both stages, not the subjects, that you highlight.

Thanks loge

Excellent puzzle. I saw the second pass unclued entry first and it took a while to work out the first because as others have said they are very different genres.
I have no problem with removing the first pass entry in the unclued space before the second pass leaving the unclued space empty once again.
Happy also to leave the first player highlighted and highlight a second player as well after following second instruction.
It seems logical to leave the second title in the unclued space in the completed puzzle. While the first title can be appled to the second player, it does not have any of the new potential clued answers as a subject.