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I'd appreciate a nudge on 9a. It seems to be a straightforward anagram which produces the name of a specific biome. Is this also a word for a themed thing? I can't find any reference to it in that sense.

I think you are correct with your idea for 9a.
I, however, can make no word at all for 8a with the crossers I have. Nor can I see how the seven redundant words make a two-word phrase...
Any help will be much appreciated.

The wordplay for 8a ends with "back" which is a directional indicator. The answer begins with K.

It's hard to answer the last 2 posts without spoiling. 9 and 8 are both very obscure words and take some finding - 9 from a country south-west of us and 8 from the far east. You presumably have the theme - but they don't appear in synonym finders ... As for the extraneous words, you don't use the whole word.

Good fun. 20ac was the key for me. I remember the TV programme. Still to solve the location however.

More a case of seeing it than solving it teenieleek

And note it says clues, not answers.

Jack & Prospero - I finally finished it having got off to a good start and then grinding to a halt. The problem was that I had inserted 3 perfectly acceptable crossing words at 1a, 1d and 2d, which made 8a impossible!

Thanks Ixion and prospero- got it. All ends neatly tied up. I wonder how long it takes these setters to produce something like that.

Also now all wrapped up. Yet another illustration of the "don't make assumptions too early" lesson: I was working on only part of the theme. What a very clever piece of construction!