Old actor steals papers revealing the timing of a Shakespeare play (9)
I believe the answer is:
midsummer
'timing of a shakespeare play' is the definition.
The answer and definition can be both related to time as well as being singular nouns.
Maybe you can see a link between them that I don't see?
'old actor steals papers revealing the' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'papers' could be 'id' (identification papers) and 'id' is located in the answer.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for midsummer that I've seen before include "Warm spell" , "Time of madness?" , "The - Marriage (Tippett)" , "24th June" , "Play with fairies and 'mechanicals'" .)