best Puzzles

Both sets of clues lead to the same answers, revealing in the shaded squares a British sitcom starring Lee Mack (3, 5, 3)

STRAIGHT CLUES

ACROSS 8 Privation (8) 9 Rubbed out (6) 10 Asserts ownership of (6) 11 Answer, reply (8) 12 Allow entrance to (5) 13 Inert gas (5) 14 Cooking chambers (5) 16 Employing, operating (5) 18 With a sharp gradient (5) 20 Cart (5) 25 Particular stress (8) 26 Hour of the day (1,5) 27 Not generous, unpleasant (6) 28 Away from the west (8)

DOWN 1 Did not succeed (6) 2 Totting up (8) 3 Not those (5) 4 Carmen, e.g. (5) 5 Thick, stupid (5) 6 Condensation, e.g. (6) 7 Cutlery item (8) 15 Essential food additives (8) 17 Gulps down (8) 19 Relating to a racial group (6) 21 Takes place, happens (6) 22 Stage whisper (5) 23 Fire residue (5) 24 Cook in an oven (5)

CRYPTIC CLUES

ACROSS 8 Need no soft vessel? (8) 9 Removed items in the paper, as editor ordered (6) 10 Asserts one’s right to 150 goals (6) 11 Reaction to crazy peer’s son (8) 12 Allow in to confess (5) 13 Are gone, we hear, to get gas (5) 14 Cooking chambers for groups of witches lacking leader (5) 16 Exploiting some of us in good faith (5) 18 Expensive and going up rapidly (5) 20 Fall off this to get a drink? (5) 25 Spies ham cooked with stress (8) 26 Cool Cork outsiders turned out this time! (1,5) 27 A French sort is not very nice (6) 28 Draw back after tea’s brewed going to the orient (8)

DOWN 1 Did not pass, feel sick when fed outside (6) 2 An extra component in a branch of maths (8) 3 The ones here in the South East briefly (5) 4 A rope trick. That’s entertainment! (5) 5 Needs components to be tightly packed (5) 6 Victoria and Albert initially for French steam? (6) 7 Paeons to get arranged for a stirrer (8) 15 Converting nativism into nutriments (8) 17 Takes down birds (8) 19 Etch in style which is cultural (6) 21 It comes to one’s mind a small volume is in ours (6) 22 One team has a throw-away comment (5) 23 She’s a different sort of trophy! (5) 24 Cook with a little gastro, as trained in college (5)