Michael Symmons Roberts
Articles By Michael Symmons Roberts
latest in today
![Taylor Swift, Wembley Stadium, Saturday 22nd June 2024](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/tay%20header.jpeg?itok=X6Ly0O0S)
Unless you were around when The Beatles toured America in the mid-1960s, it’s doubtful you've heard anything like this. In 40 years of extensive...
![Martin James Bartlett watched with delight by Fantasia Orchestra leader Millie Ashton](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/Fantasia%201.jpg?itok=v4fqQDvE)
Any programme featuring Gershwin’s top large-scale works might tend to the “pops” side. Bernstein’s West Side Story Overture and even the...
![It’s all relative: Theo Ogundipe and Tiwa Lade in ‘My Father’s Fable’.](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/fable1.jpg?itok=2S4sJgVz)
Following the huge success of Benedict Lombe’s Shifters, which transfers soon to the West End, the...
![Ruthlessly organised: Simone Signoret in 'Army of Shadows'](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/L--Armee-des-ombres-Photos-022PHOTO-jpgiii.jpg?itok=obTJMiE7)
One of those rare films that leaves you speechless after the closing credits, Jean-Pierre Melville’s Army of Shadows (L'Armée des...
![Ideal lovers: Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen as Cesare and Louise Alder as Cleopatra](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/Cesare%201.jpeg?itok=3JdC7eMC)
How much better can a classic get? Sebastian Scotney more or less asked the same question on theartsdesk the last time Giulio...
![Kelly Clancy](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/kelly%20portrait.jpg?itok=Oe1dXxId)
For a couple of decades, the free video game America’s Army was a powerful recruitment aid for the US military. More than a shoot-em-up,...
![Chillin' with them old blues](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/Peyroux_LetsWalk_Cover_03_3600x3600%20%281%29.jpg?itok=F2jUDM0f)
Madeleine Peyroux made her name with her second album, 2004’s Careless Love. It consists almost completely of cover versions, delivered...
![The Cryin’ Shames, c. September 1966 in their final incarnation as Paul & Ritchie & The Crying Shames](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/The%20Cryin%E2%80%99%20Shames%20Do%20The%20Strum_the%20cryin%20shames_Header_1000.jpg?itok=Y75fI_xH)
Liverpool’s The Cryin’ Shames were responsible for two of mid-Sixties Britain’s most striking single’s tracks. The February 1966 top side “Please...
![The statue of Smetana, born 200 years ago, presides over the main square of his native Litomyšl](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/1000021319.jpg?itok=j5ytrfbY)
What did they put in the water of Czechia’s central Bohemia/Moravia borderlands? From south to north there's Mahler’s birthplace in Kali...