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A nice challenge today from eXternal.
That said, my foremost thought was that it's a real gift for Brendan!

Yes, a lovely puzzle. It was very well put-together, well balanced and good fun. I am no fan of the theme, but I didn't mind that as I'd enjoyed getting to that stage.

PS Yes, Brendan might be ... transported (I live in hope - only kidding, Brendan!)

Thanks for the update guys,

I'd put this aside until tomorrow but, after reading your posts, might do it after the football.

Most enjoyable. It took a bit of trial and error with the list, some of the associations being new to me but it worked out well.

Got a full grid from the clues and identified the key figure suitably attired. Unfortunately I cannot find the related work from the additional words in the across clues. I understand, and agree that, Brendan may be very very happy with this one.

Gitto. It’s from the same source/work, details the attire.

Thanks teenieleek, but I must be stupid. According to me that would be the one directly after the work identified by the last letters in the down clues and none of my extra words seem to appear in it - especially the one from 34a which is a couple of millennia too late.

Stupidity on ice - IDENTIFIED by the extra words!

Gitto, not stupid, took me a bit to realise. Look at the extra word in 15ac. She was a s???????g ?????? Each extra word leads to a similar one. Hope that helps.

I have the theme, full grid, and key figure. But not sure about “use each one of these (approximately) to portray the subject”. Do we have to do more highlighting? Or move some parts of the grid? Or change some of the cells?