Cromer Pavilion

You can go to see Raymond Froggatt to be entertained. But something very special adds to an evening that few entertainers manage: he connects.

He moves his audience with simple songs, telling simple stories. Last night, at the breezy end of Cromer Pier, hundreds of us were warmed and saddened through songs that told the story of our lives - of love and success, of failure and rejection.

His pain, his poignancy, his warmth and perception are not the entertainer's artifice: this is a man who has had more than his share of life's knocks. But he has had his glories, too.

We all related to the deceptive simplicity of his words, his melodies. In his career he has written for and has been praised by some stellar names - Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, Cliff Richard and Tammy Wynette. But, as he quietly put it to the audience: “These are songs about all of us”, and they surely are.

We sat in pin-drop silence as he sang Time Blows the Years Away. And it did. Though it does not blow all the tears away.