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Many thanks to all who have contributed so far. I am making progress but still don’t get how to change the two rows. Without giving too much away can someone tell me what happens to the first letter in row five? Might help to kick start me to the next level!

My other half bought me a relevant box set for Xmas, in which the relevant feature included a principal character with the same, unusual surname, profession and town of residency as my grandmother! Despite the universe sending me these psychic clues...I have sweated blood over this one.

The message from the extra words is critical, and it took me a while to see a 'twist' in the way these work. I hope this puts fellow travellers on the right track. If this helps you see a message emerging persevere using guesses where you are not sure of the extra word. You really need the whole message to see lines 5/6 in a different, binary way.

I hope that helps, without spoiling it.

Jamesm, two themes are interlinked. What goes in the box beneath the puzzle is the linking piece. The asterisk person was associated with the second theme, hinted at by the title. The first theme gives you a way of transforming the rows 5/6 to reveal the start of a title. This and the name hidden, pretty much in plain sight, in rows 5/6 should give you a way forward.

Enjoying this - thanks to the setter for the mental gym session.

Hope it's not a case of "better to travel than arrive" - as sometimes happens with these multi-stranded puzzles.

Wonderful puzzle, and thank you Botox. I was sidetracked for a day by a wrong letter in a grey cell. Even though I had the theme I couldn't reconcile everything. Some careful checking of parsing uncovered the problem and then it all fell neatly into place.

My only loose end is the final step. I cannot decide how the setter wants us to write the rest of the title under the grid. On balance I think this should be done in the conventional way but I'm not 100% sure. Any thoughts on this?

Ah good point, Kitsune. I used the conventional way but now you have me thinking that I should go back and check. Good job I couldn't find my stamps today!

Kitsune, I’m a little surprised there has been so little comment on that. The preamble is not conclusive, and for that reason I would be surprised if either was marked incorrect. I don’t submit, so I don’t care, but if forced I would choose the same style as rows 5 and 6, because we’re not instructed to change the method of representation

I feel that the remainder of the title should be written plain, rather than in the form of the marks that "represent" the first part.

But I also think that it would be wrong to penalise someone who submitted in representative form.

Reflecting overnight, I think the preamble tells us to "represent" part of the title and "write" the rest. Therefore this is what I will do.

I’d say definitely write out the rest of the title underneath. That is the dedication referred to

Great fun. Thought it was going to prove impossible, but swallowed my pride early on and used chambers anagram feature to work out one of the across clues, and the rest followed steadily on from that. Not that it matters because I don’t enter, but what is the feeling on that these days? I sort of assume aids (like chambers and the internet generally) are fair game, and these puzzles factor in their use. They would be pretty much impossible without them…

Just a couple of queries:

24 I can see anagram fodder, but it seems to contain an extra letter?
8 likewise here, but struggling to find anagrind. Is it just the question mark?

Had the wrong superfluous word for 7, which caused me some grief. Did think the anagrind for that was slightly controversial, but then realised I had it the wrong way round. Never heard of the other word as an anagrind, but I see there is an obscure meaning that might work…