Jumbo crossword No 16

Cigogne, thank you for this entertaining crossword and congratulations on your first jumbo on this site. I solved this over a few sittings and with a not-insignificant amount of dictionary help, especially in the NW corner, which I found particularly hard (more on that later, perhaps). I enjoyed 5a, 14a, 18a (outstanding), 36a, 38a, 39a, 53a, 55a, 56a, 57a, 7d, 22d, 24d, 28d, 37d, 44d, and 47d. Overall great fun and some lovely thematic clues and solutions. More in replies.

Really fun theme Cigogne and lots to like. For the most part it was reasonably straightforward, but there were some really chewy clues (a mix I don't mind at all). Being a jumbo puzzle, the list of faves is long 9a, 14a, 17a, 18a (lol, class), 29a, 38a, 40a, 54a, 6d, 12d, 22d, 27d, 42d, 46d, Spoilers...

Agree with Dyno on 1a. A lot going on there! A clever (though v cryptic) def that didn't help the solver much but made for a great PDM, the 2 deletions, 1 with significant misdirection as 'without topping' had me looking to delete just the 1st letter, so hitting on the right fodder to work with was tough and i revealed a could of letters to help. And you did well to clue 11d so coherently but it defeated me.