Article pains ham actor (8)
I believe the answer is:
thespian
'actor' is the definition.
(I know that actor can be written as thespian)
'article pains ham' is the wordplay.
I cannot really see how this works, but
'article' could be 'the' (the definite article in English) and 'the' is found within the answer.
an anagram of 'pains' is 'spian' which is present in the answer.
This accounts for all the letters.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for thespian that I've seen before include "Theatrical type" , "Tragic actor" , "Dramatic actor" , "A formal actor" , "cast member" .)