Cryptic crossword No 617

Crikey tpg. Welcome to MyC and that was a chewy one with which to debut. I needed help in the NE. Your monster is quite an impressive feat. Likes included: 10a (clean), 12a (ditto), 14a (amusing), 19a (lovely), 23a (lol), 1d (clever), 16d (nice surface). A couple of comments in Reply with spoilers. Thanks. PM

That was great fun! It looked hard to start with but once I’d (kind of) cracked the long beast the rest of it fell into place at a pleasing pace. Liked 16d, 27a, 6a, 23a. Rest of my comments are spoilery so hidden in the Reply. Great work!

In the words of Monty Python, broody herr! Excellent, poison. Solving 18d made clear the answer to 6d etc. based on numeration, and that combined with many solid clues allowed much of the grid to be filled. Like PM, I needed assistance for final answers in NE. Agree with Henri on 4d. Principal observation was that I tended to be able to guess answers from defs rather than solving them from wordplay, e.g. 13d. That’s a risk, I suppose, when solutions quote or name renowned works. Hat!

Very nice, tpg. My solving experience was similar to Leucine's - went straight to 18, which wasn't too hard to crack, and that gave away the long one. Made it a fairly quick solve overall, though like others I was slowed down by a few tricky ones in the NE corner. Good fun and well crafted. Favourites were 11a, 12a, 23a, 27a, 24d. Look forward to more of the same from you.

Well, I thought that was brilliant. Long ones like your 6d, 13a, 15d, 3d, can unbalance a grid and I thought you brought it off superbly - a number of other thematic answers but not overwhelming. I wasn’t familiar with the expressions in 4d and 9d; but I really liked 7a, 11a, 12a, 14a, 19a, 21a (ha, ha), 2d, 5d (ingenious and entirely accurate) and 8d.

Lovely stuff! Having scanned comments first, I went straight to 18D and then thankfully worked out 6D etc from the enumeration. Everything then slipped into place until I ran aground like others in the NE. Particularly liked 12A,19A, 26A, 1D, 13D and 24D. Well done and thanks tpg!

A lovely puzzle and a BIG fan of the theme. Enjoyed it, thanks. My favourite clues were 7a 11a (LOI) 19a 21a 23a 2d 8d and 20d. Cheers

Difficult to comment without being repetitive. Super crossword and my solving experience the same as nearly everyone else. Not a duff clue among them, but special mention to 11A: very difficult but perfectly fair and satisfying to solve.