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Very satisfying, apart from the fact that I am bemused by 3 down. Not a clue which letter(s) goes/go into the unchecked cell.

Thanks, serpent.

I do know how many but don't wish to give anything away!

I enjoyed this one. I appreciate when the theme is simply a word that the setter can riff on and use to inspire the mechanics of a puzzle. Pop culture or historic texts can lead to fun themed puzzles, but more often than not I have no idea what the source is. So I enjoy not needing any sort of specialized knowledge to understand a puzzle completely.

Thanks for the fun Serpent!

Not as much of a fan of this as others by the looks of things. Bit of a damp squib for me. On the plus side, the clues were strong and no pesky grid. 22d was very clever I thought.

That did say 'grid staring' but the second word got deleted somehow...

I've got the entry at 3 down, missing the bleeding obvious! But don't see the full parsing.

Hidden in the clue, bc

Thanks, dodgepot. As Chris Kamara would say "unbelievable Jeff!"

How on earth did I miss that! My 93 year old mother-in-law still tackles the pretty crappy Daily Mail puzzle, and hidden words are her Achilles heel. Can't count the number of times that I've pointed them out to her.
Hoist by my own petard!

Thoroughly enjoyed that, so thank you Serpent. Some of the cluing was quite devious! Please can someone help me to parse 24d and 26d? I have the answers but the wordplay eludes me.

Presume you mean 24A and 26A?:

24A: is 10-letter word for trainee less first 4 letters, short for 'approved' and 'rector'. Extra letter A

26A: def. 1st word, with the usual one-letter abb. for 'with' in French 'of' and 2-letter abb. for lieutenant. Extra letter S