| PIPER | The Pied ___ of Hamelin, the main character in a tale of a rat catcher hired by the town to lure rats away |
| REGATTA | Series of boat or yacht races, such as that held annually on the Thames by the town of Henley (7) |
| NOUGAT | Sweet made famous by the town of Montelimar in the Rhone Valley (6) |
| RSC | Sir Peter Hall founded the his grandfather was a rat catcher on the Sandringham estate (1,1,1,) |
| BABA | Ali -; character in a tale from the One Thousand and One Nights collection who discovers the magic formula "Open Sesame!" (4) |
| CAT | A rat catcher in alpaca territory |
| NEVERMIND | Forget it is either Edward or Kelly being a rat-catcher? (5,4) |
| LEANDER | Shylock - grasping adult character in a tale (7) |
| PIEDPIPER | The ___ ___ of Hamelin, narrative poem by Robert Browning about a character hired to remove rats from a town (4,5) |
| GUIGNOL | Main character in a French puppet show of the same name, representing the workers of the French silk industry (7) |
| BRERRABBIT | Main character in a series of stories melding the Cherokee rabbit-trickster with the culture of African slaves (4,6) |
| OUTCOME | In Paris where leading characters in A Tale of Two Cities, for instance, produced result (7) |
| REGINALD | -- Perrin, the main character in a series of novels by David Nobbs (8) |
| EBENEZER | First name of the miser who is the main character in A Christmas Carol (8) |
| STY | No alternative in a tale of a filthy place (3) |
| SWIFT | Jonathan ___, author of A Tale of a Tub and A Modest Proposal (5) |
| RAMBO | Main character in a series of action films played by Sylvester Stallone (5) |
| DORACOPPERFIELD | First wife of the main character in a Dickens novel (4,11) |
| REAGENT | Substance to chemical analysis by colourful type briefly hired by the CIA (7) |
| DRAFTEE | Float in a river, one is hired by the army (7) |
