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Obviously Limerick man’s is reversed (retired)

Hi Tony,

5d - (to be) big hit is 1,7 with the definition "Man's son maybe"

23a - "retired Limerick man" is a 4 letter person reversed inside/"enthralled by" "couple" which coud be 1,1 or a Roman numeral, both work

*Top clue "man" isn't a person and 23a "Limerick" isn't a place.

I found this definitely the most difficult Guardian Prize I've done for a very long time. However, I've eventually got there except two clues. Oddly, they don't seem to be two of those which were found difficult by many people, and one of them hasn't been mentioned at all as far as I remember, so maybe I'm missing something really obvious. They are 7d & 20a. Any help?

Micky, 20a is straightforward enough. Last letter of the (finale) plus word for opening, gives a competition. 7d trickier. Assuming you have 23a, definition is first two words. A well known former PM of that country. Parses 3, 4, 5 with a single letter for mass between the 4 and the 5.

Micky 20a

This synonym for an opening turns up time and time again. Remember it, it will come in handy.

Hi Quisling,

5d - Your parsing of 2,6 makes much more sense. I didn't know that definition of the 6 so had convinced myself that my 7 could sort of mean "hit" and of course "big" would make it the 'No.1'.

Honestly though, I was never entirely happy with my take on it and just assumed it was another example of the looseness I took to be JH's in 2d,

So is there no wordplay in 15d? It's just a straight definition?

I thought the definition was the first 4 words, so was trying to figure out wordplay from the second half of the clue. But are we staying the whole clue is the definition and there's no wordplay?

It's a bit of both.

It refers to a lonely person from a well known musical and butter refers to one who butts rather than the spread.

Thanks to Brendan and Quisling, tricky clues this week …..still got a handful to go !

In connection with 20a, I said "maybe I'm missing something really obvious", and yes, of course I was. An absolutely straightfoward and easy clue. How I can have missed it I can't imagine. My brain musr have been on strike.