ACROSS
1 Holy man, a theologian observed in close briefly (6)
SADDHU A D(octor of) D(ivinity) seen within SHU(t), a short version of close. Saddhus are holy men of the Hindu variety.
4 Fever? Spirit must be knocked back with water (7)
MURRAIN Well may the definition have a ? following. Murrain is more or less obsolete word for a variety of cattle diseases, one of which is Redwater Fever (so that’s alright then). In older versions of the Bible, it’s the fifth plague visited on the unfortunate Egyptians for refusing to deport the Israelites. In our clue the spirit is RUM, reversed and added to RAIN, one of the many forms of water.
9 Partygoer in posh car straddling half of road (5)
RAVER The posh car is a Roller, or RR, which brackets AVE, half of avenue.
10 Directors faced with difficult sort of material (9)
HARDBOARD BOARD is pretty much a given for directors, and it’s not difficult to derive HARD from – um – difficult.
11 Church really gutted about blemish — that’s inevitable (9)
CERTAINTY Church today is CE, and really gutted is RY. Insert TAINT for blemish
12 Plant with interior that’s yellow and off-white (5)
IVORY Your plant is (thank goodness) IVY. OR is heraldic for yellow, though more often in these quarters gold.
13 Heartless biographies — don’t believe them! (4)
LIES LIVES without the middle letter.
14 Making sure priest and soldiers can be accommodated in group (10)
SECUREMENT Looking a lot like one of those words made up to look posher than, say, securing. But it’s in Chambers. And made up of CURÉ for priest, plus MEN for soldiers, both placed within SET for group.
18 Removes message implying workers will go back to work (7,3)
STRIKES OFF A rather terse version of a message terminating Industrial (in)action.
20 Square where two answers start in this puzzle (4)
FOUR Being 2X2 and what it says.
23 Recognised player regularly taking food provided by poulterer (5)
CAPON The renowned lining for the fair round belly of the Justice, created by castrating and fattening a cockerel. The recognised player is a CAP, and regularly taking translates to ON as in he’s on statins, which some of us know about.
24 Special writing with fancy pictures enthralling toddler ultimately (9)
SCRIPTURE Which doesn’t have to be the Bible and can be just handwriting. Here it’s our first anagram (fancy), of PICTURES with an embraced (toddle)R
25 Walk quietly and meanderingly round capital, ending in cafe (9)
PROMENADE Quietly: P, AND meanderingly: NAD, capital ROME, end of (caf)E. Assemble thoughtfully.
26 Man hugging wife somewhere in Wales once (5)
GWENT Your man is a GENT, his W(ife) is hugged. Gwent Police firmly believe it’s still their manor, and s*d this “once“ business
27 Savant troubled about English language that’s passed out of use (7)
AVESTAN Likewise, practising Zoroastrians might want you to know that their sacred language is still in use. Today, it’s constructed from “troubled” SAVANT and E(nglish)
28 Put off when receiving mark of wrong or right (6)
DEXTER Roman for right, preserved in heraldry. DETER is put off, and X is of course the teacher’s equivalent of our pink square.
DOWN
1 Ship leaking a bit apparently? Tools required (9)
STRICKLES Our SS ship has a TRICKLE on board. Strickles are use for levelling measures of grain or shaping a mould or sharpening scythes, which to my mind makes them rather varied tools., though here’s one of them:
2 Be different, putting girl on edge (7)
DIVERGE DI, our random (but frequent) girl, is placed on the VERGE
3 Like some drinks offering cure when brother’s upset inside (6)
HERBAL Just a hint of &lit. Cure is HEAL and BR for brother is inverted within.
4 Join together in old-fashioned expression of surprise (5)
MARRY You can do a pretty good impression of a mediaeval fool by capering a bit and saying things like “prithee” “i’faith” and “marry nuncle” a lot. But I wouldn’t advise it. What we have here is a double definition.
5 Teacher and old-fashioned rocker chatted (8)
RABBITED Your teacher is a RABBI (you don’t have to be Jewish, but…) and your old-fashioned rocker is a TED. I imagine most of us know Teds who might question the “old-fashioned” bit.
6 Rubbish mostly hidden under a sea mollusc (7)
ABALONE You just need the A (the sea belongs to the definition) and rubbish is BALONE(y). Sure, it’s a shellfish, but for me it will always be the town in the rather wonderful little movie “The Seven Faces of Dr Lao”, in which Tony Randall plays just about everyone.
7 Enid’s boy with absence of daddy regularly missing out (5)
NODDY The Enid is Blyton, and her creation the boy hero of Toytown. “Absence of” stands in for NO, and the odd letters of DaDdY provide the rest.
8 Enthusiastic fans, maybe, about to meet Queen in county (8)
CHANTERS I think we must envisage football fans and their cheery singing. About is C(irca), the Queen is of course ER, and the county is HANTS (Hampshire). Assemble judiciously
15 Wearing special clothes not fashionable, lacking shape (8)
UNFORMED If you are wearing special clothes, you are UNIFORMED. Skip the fashionable IN. On edit: I have corrected my formatting error to underline the right part of the clue: thank you Kevin for ensuring I wasn’t uninformed. Other have pointed out the other thing I missed, which is you can’t actually take out IN because it isn’t there. Setter’s mistake? Probably, but I won’t leap to judgement, letting “I dare not” wait upon “I would”, like the poor cat i’ th’ adage.
16 Politician falling short with adviser a cruel person (9)
TORMENTOR Our TOR(y) falls short (insert barbed political quip here) and is accompanied by a MENTOR
17 Without means to pay, is in Paris for medical check (4,4)
SKIN TEST SKINT plus is in French EST. A rather similar clue turned up in 27013, in case you have that déjà vu sensation.
19 Rebuke agent wanting to go hither and thither (7)
REPROVE Agent is REP, and the rest of the clue provides ROVE
21 No let-up working if you want to get rich (7)
OPULENT An anagram (working) of NO LET_UP
22 Furthest point attained by wild animal I caught climbing (6)
APOGEE The wild animal is APE, and I is EGO which is reversed and caught by the ape., not the other way round.
23 Source of oil artist needs to acquire first (5)
COPRA The fons et origo of coconut oil. The artist is a R(oyal) A(cademician) and “acquire” yields COP (as in hold of) to go first
24 Leader of subversives put down, killed (5)
SLAIN I will leave it to others more learned than I to debate whether “put down” yields LAID rather than LAIN. Leader of subversives is unquestionably S.
Lain is the pp of lie. Put down cannot mean lie, It usually means lay, a weak verb whose pp is laid. Occasionally put down is an intransitive verb – an aeroplane can put down – but then it means move into a lying position not be in one.