CRYPTIC CLUES

ACROSS

1 Kind actors given similar roles (8) 5 Some authoritarian deity (4) 9 Meadow flower round mouth of a bullock? (5) 10 Saw the digs being demolished (7) 11 Bloody riotous orgy (4)

12 Animal to suffer over shrub (8)

14 Dance and point, quick! (6)

15 States capable of being useful (6) 18 Primate to devour fruit outside (5,3) 20 Rotten position (4)

23 Rum baba? Not half, could be acrid (7) 24 Some shank, leg or joint (5) 25 Christmas, when you lie heartlessly (4) 26 Swap over former coppers (8)

DOWN

1 Piece of cloth on guy, beachwear item (5) 2 Italian port with less colour, on tick (7)

3 Cold? Take off cloak! (4)

4 Before dance, elite troops walk with a swagger (6) 6 Very warm, the Spanish accommodation (5) 7 Communist record for excessive bureaucracy (3,4) 8 Hogs’ ire combined is monstrous (7) 13 Newcomer put out having to entertain celebrity (7) 14 Union attendee’s hairstyle? (4,3) 16 Northern peak containing shelf of fern (7) 17 Semicircle takes in cross old riddler (6) 19 Surpass XL, it’s said (5)

21 University bloke elegised interior (5)

22 To have a bath used to be hard (4)