After sitting through a rendition of “I Kissed a Girl” by a four-year-old in head-to-toe red sequins and a teeny tiny piano protégée being eaten alive by Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5, by the time a portly, pushing-seventy Frank Sinatra strolled out to entertain us with the off-key strains of “Fly Me to the Moon” I had a glimmer of hope that Norman wasn’t actually going to be anywhere near the worst of Swansea’s best.

Now, I’m willing to admit that I don’t know a lot about talent shows, this being my first and all, but I reckon I know enough to know that scheduling two Frank Sinatra impersonators in a row is not a good idea. I mean, why wouldn’t you throw in a tiny Taylor Swift or the pair of Mariahs to mix it up? Surely that would make more sense. Clearly, though, whoever was in charge did think it was a good idea. But less than a minute after the second Frank (who was a couple of decades younger, much svelter and actually not half bad) began his rendition of “My Way,” it became clear it most definitely was not.

To be fair, it seemed okay at first as he launched into the first chorus with quite passable Sinatra gusto, but by the time he began reminiscing about regrets and doing what he had to do it became impossible to ignore the slow but very loud booing coming from the side of the stage, accompanied by random single claps as Very Bloody Bad Frank, microphone still in hand and turned on, made his feelings clear.

“Booooo.” Clap. “Boooo, ooooo.” Clap. “Boooooooo.” Clap, clap.

Not Half Bad Frank went from confident impostor to flustered amateur as he peered into the darkened wings, unable to quite comprehend what was going so wrong with his act, which had been going so well. After a few stutters he fell completely out of time with his backing tape and his crooning degenerated into a stammering word soup. But he carried on, singing louder and louder to try to drown out his nemesis, whose boos and claps increased volume at the same rate.

After a final valiant but excruciating verse, there was no denying Not Half Bad Frank was most certainly doing it his way. In a merciful intervention, the backing music came to an abrupt stop and the poor guy trailed off into silence, miserably twisting his bow tie and melting under a spotlight that nobody thought to move off him. He was beaten. I recognized the shape of him from my father’s many near-fatalities on many other stages. Come on, love, let’s go home.

A handful of the kinder audience members began a lackluster ripple of applause, then someone appeared from the wings to thrust the next poor bugger out onto the stage. And there he was. My boy. My entire family. Blinking in the light, holding a huge microphone awkwardly between two red-raw, hopeful hands. Lamb. To. The. Slaughter.

The broken Not Half Bad Frank limped offstage and, at the sight of Norman, Tony and Kathy elbowed me excitedly at the same time from either side. I glanced out of the corner of my left eye at Kathy, then out of the corner of my right eye at Tony, and felt an army gathering its forces behind my scar. Tell them. Now or never, Sadie. And although now was a somewhat inappropriate time and never was a far more appealing prospect, the voice in my head was right. If Norman could get up there on that stage and do what he was about to do, I could at least have the courtesy to do my lousy part, which I suspected according to Leonard’s schedule should already be done. I leaned slowly sideways toward Tony.