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A bit late to the party, but many thanks. I was struggling with this until I glanced at the forum and saw that I should be looking for a theme. Ironically, it's one of my favourite subjects. 8a was my LOI, but it would have given the game away if I had seen it earlier.

I think it's worth congratulating Brockwell on his tour-de-force in making every single across clue thematic. And for nearly all of them, the theme is the whole answer. It's only in 23a and 24a (and perhaps 26a) that the theme is embedded. That's quite a feat.

That is the "added thematic feature" I mentioned upthread.

and got the theme.

Not liking this so far. Have two clues in that are correct. Two clues where I have one of the words and not the other, and one clue where I have the outside but can't parse the inside bit, so its probably wrong.

Will take a break and come back later I think.

illipu
In case you haven’t got it yet, in 5d the definition is the first word and the cryptic fodder is provided by the last four, the second word being padding. You need a bit of modern languages knowledge.

5d was my FOI. Very happy to be able to use my limited language skills to get that one. I'm a long way off finishing yet but I like Brockwell. His puzzles are always a bit more interesting.

Thanks rogissimo.

5d I got the answer from definition and crossers.... I parse the same as you do, except I don't seem to have the knowledge of modern languages. I sense the plural (if right) but haven't gotten the singular.

It is the plural of the singular that ends in e.

I now have a number of across clues and haven't twigged any theme yet.

I found it a reasonably straightforward solve but didn’t twig the theme until late on.
8a would have helped (especially having set this week’s Clueless!).
Thanks to Rainman for pointing out the existence of hidden thematics as I certainly would have missed those.
Had to Google the reference in 16a though I feel I should have known it.

Nice puzzle, many thanks to Brockwell.

In 15d what does 10 refer to? Is it 10ac or something else?