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Wordplay is ‘Country women is’, with a moved ‘s’ (special), with country being rural.

Try saying ‘*** **’ a witch’ in a West Country accent.

That's great, many thanks HW7.

Brendan, glad that little bit of help - for 17 A - was enough. I was glad your other query was answered, I had no idea how 47 A worked!

Agreed Malone, 47a was perplexing but HW7's ??? ?? a witch hint got me there in a millisecond!

I am kicking myself over 17a though, for not taking account of the clue having both "hide" and "split".

I would say there comes a point where one just thinks, "I've gone as far as I can with this and I'll never get it", but my post initially included 16a and I got that as I was actually typing it in - after hours of going around in circles:-)

Thanks, Smellyharry - my 8d was wrong and now it makes sense. Regarding the removal of 3 letters, one being highlighted, there is an obvious way to do this but now 43a no longer yields a word.

I could be misinterpreting 'considering empty cells as blocks'. Apart form here, there are only three empty cells and they are not a problem.

foinaven - you shouldn’t be going anywhere near 43a. Look elsewhere

Being instructed to highlight then to erase part of the highlighting seems a little strange to me.

I do enjoy details such as the last clause of the preamble being doubly applicable.

OK. Thank you very much,

Just to clarify, I rejected this alternative immediately since the protagonist stabbed himself with appropriate hairpins twice, so I was expecting a plural form.

His real fate is not a resulting physical condition but is the central theme of the next play in the second drama, and the five letters involved are readily available in the grid. Maybe Dysart did not realise this, or perhaps it is a deliberate red herring to catch anyone who knows enough about the context. And I am a mathematician, not a classicist!

I am disappointed. The more subtle fate could well have been worked into the endgame.

Finally finished grid staring, the crossword and going round in circles on the WWW for ages. Like others, I found the NE corner particularly difficult, and to come to the realisation that a couple of hours figuring out 11d was, in the end, futile, is rather annoying!!!! Some somewhat strange anagram indicators (as in my nemesis, 11d) were particularly unhelpful - but I'm not complaining, as this is a marvellous puzzle - but a little additional help to identify the drama would have saved me a lot of angst.