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does anyone understand the true answer to 18A, rather than the grid entry? I think it is an anagram of Near plus Gite.

I don't understand the parsing of 33D either.

Hi kobnut, I only got so far with this before going out and I'm on my phone not having it in front of me. However, to make sense of the grid entry of 18a and the other 14 like affected, my interpretation of the preamble is once you have the answer, 1 letter is extracted and the grid entry is made up of the remaining letters; possibly an anagram not just an extraction. Here enargite (as you thought, near* + gite) and the grid entry could be granite if an "e" is surplus.

your anagram gives enargite - a dark grey mineral consisting of a sulphide of copper and arsenic

sorry ginge - didn't see your answer!

Thank you both. I had the grid entry but missed finding enargite in my dictionary.

My 13 letters give gibberish then PLAY. I have a string of vowels where I think there ought to be consonants. Is the gibberish the name of the playwright?

I didn't get all the letters, but I'm sure it does spell out the playwright (initials MH).

Initials are ML, in fact.

33dn is:

I (current) + NG (no good) in PER (a).

Spare letter after rearranging is the P, as far as I can tell.

Yes, I was just coming back to correct myself . Sorry about that!