Portraying James without a crown and getting on in years (7)
I believe the answer is:
imaging
'portraying james' is the definition.
Although both the answer and definition are singular nouns, I don't see how one could define the other.
'without a crown and getting on in years' is the wordplay.
'without a crown' becomes 'im' (I can't explain this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'and' says to put letters next to each other.
'getting on in years' becomes 'aging' (I've seen this in another clue).
'im'+'aging'='IMAGING'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for imaging that I've seen before include "Making pictures" , "Taking a picture of" , "Creating a picture" , "Making pictorial representation of (something)" , "Forming a picture of (something)" .)