Outside appearance involving king is total shambles (5)
I believe the answer is:
farce
'shambles' is the definition.
'outside appearance involving king is total' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'king' could be 'r' (abbreviation for rex, king in Latin) and 'r' is found in the answer.
'appearance' could be 'face' (face is a kind of appearance) and 'face' is found in the leftover letters.
No letters remain.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for farce that I've seen before include "Absurd proceedings, perhaps in play" , "Rookery Nook?" , "Total shambles!" , "Absurdity" , "Comedy of high improbability" .)