He's up to all sorts of tricks (8)
I believe the answer is:
magician
'he's up to all sorts of tricks' is the definition.
The answer is a person as well as being a singular noun. This is suggested by the definition.
'he's up to all sorts of tricks' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
'tricks' could be 'magic' (I've seen this before) and 'magic' is found within the answer.
'he' could be 'ian' and 'ian' is located in the answer.
This accounts for all the letters.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for magician that I've seen before include "Conjuror, illusionist" , "Conjurer, illusionist" , "One working wonders" , "A stage illusionist, or cartoon Mandrake" , "Wizard like cartoon Mandrake" .)