'Not original' — university musical reviewed by Independent (9)
I believe the answer is:
imitative
'not original' is the definition.
Both the definition and answer are adjectives. Maybe you can see a link between them that I can't see?
'university musical reviewed by independent' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'university' could be 'mit' (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and 'mit' is found within the answer.
'by' could be 'at' and 'at' is found within the answer.
'independent' could be 'i' and 'i' is located in the answer.
The remaining letters 'ive' is a valid word which might be clued in a way I don't see.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
(Other definitions for imitative that I've seen before include "Apish, emulative" , "pirated" , "Following a model" , "Mimicking or onomatopoeic" , "Echoing" .)