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I took the alternative letters as confirming that the correct approach had been taken to the end game (i.e. the unclued entries). A nice way of doing it. Much like 9d, which was intuitively 'must be that' but took a lot of thinking to parse. I could be wildly off track with all of this. I'm not sure I'd call it easy, but I congratulate those who did it quickly.

I doubt the cell with two letters is an oversight. Taking the 4 unclued entries together, they contain all the examples of the third word.

Sorry to see negative responses to this one -- I thought it was nicely constructed and well clued. My only issue is that if one looks outside a restricted set of the C's in the quotation's ABC then V is a third option for the two-letter square.

Finished! But not sure the relevance of “prison” in 14d. I think it works as “school” , rather than “prison school”. Am I missing something? Thanks in advance

'prison' is showing school is 'penned' in SE

You need to think of “prison” as a verb, like “imprison”, to make the clue work

Greetings all - humming Cwm Rhondda for the benefit of those struggling with 9 down (wrong part of Wales I know). I've nearly filled the grid and would like to carry on and wonder if I could ask for a nudge on the North-West corner. I have an answer that fits 2 down and is a plural of a sacred location but cannot parse it at all. I can make no progress with 11 across at all (perhaps because 2 down is wrong) and have an unsatisfactory answer with 3 down. Any help appreciated. It looks well worth pursing. Diolch.

2D - Benin (IVR) following 'best' on marble (in game) has missing letter
11A - elaborate lyric (poetic) + beat down (new definition for me) has missing letter
3D Embrace (missing letter)

You probably have 2 down correct: 1 letter (cf Beckett), 2 letters (country code), 2 letters (type of marble minus a letter)
11 across: definition is the last 2 words; parsing 2 (minus a letter) + 3 (synonym)
3 down: definition is the last 2 words; wordplay is a synonym for the first minus a letter

Thanks Crates and Mack - there now and most grateful (what an odd IVR!)