Thanks for all the feedback, much appreciated. It doesn’t seem that it was too difficult. I thought the ‘mechanical’ reference might prove tricky. For completeness, I’ll post the solution later today or tomorrow morning.
Just to add, although two orientations of the solutions in the grid are possible, only one of these is correct ;-)
Hi Jono
Before you post the solution; I have only today just looked in as I am having many insurance claim problems here.
So far, I have 2 x A, F, G, N, and 3 x S
I am unsure of 3 unless it begins with C ?
Finding the jigsaw hard to fit them in :(
PS Jono
I forget to say how clever the clues and the grid were.
I especially liked the Shakespearean one, and one of the across answers was the last word spoken by the character's alter ego after stabbing herself !
Just to wrap things up, here is the solution. There are two possible orientations of the grid, but “supporting” in 6 indicates a down clue, so the intended solution looks like this…
🇸 🇳 🇦 🇬 🇸
🇨 🇦 🇩 🇷 🇪
🇦 🇻 🇮 🇦 🇳
🇷 🇪 🇪 🇫 🇸
🇫 🇱 🇺 🇹 🇪
Good one, you got me.
I made a first guess based on the shared V, and it happened to work, so I blindly filled in the rest of the grid without regard to subtleties.