It’s a scene of almost unimaginable hysteria. During a roof-raising performance of Suspicious Minds, Elvis Presley has run to the edge of the stage and fallen prostrate to the floor to hug a lady in a wheelchair. You can see it’s not easy for him – his white Aloha jumpsuit straining – but he looks strong as she grips his neck and kisses him. His sweat and inky hair glitters as the cameras go wild. A woman looking on bursts into tears. A child is rushed over to put a Hawaiian garland around his neck.

This is Blackpool, June 2007. We are in the fabulously named Norcalympia arena in the Balmoral Wing of the frankly not so fabulous Norbreck Castle. It’s a monster hotel (with no relation to a castle, other than its phony crenellation) that is playing host to the National Federation of Tenant Management Organisations in another of its wings and tomorrow will be home to a Royal Marines annual shindig.

Tonight, however, it’s the site of the Ultimate Elvis Contest, a European heat in the first worldwide contest for Elvis impersonators. Organised by the Elvis estate in Memphis, the prize is the dream of every ETA (Elvis Tribute Artist, as they prefer to be called) – a trip to Graceland to compete in the Grand Finals during Elvis Week this month.

By now Elvis, or rather Paul Larcombe, 36, a former Navy officer from Crewe, is back on his feet. He has just been told he has won the ticket to Memphis, by one point. He waves to the Caesar Palace band to slow things down, or rather gets the sound man to press pause on the CD machine. Panting, he looks up at his beaming audience: “Huh, I gaht to tell you, seriously. I am not going to cry but . . . uh, can I be myself?” he slips into a Northern accent: “I can’t believe this. Thank you so much. Now I got to go back to being my idol.”

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He leaps up, the horns kick in and he finishes off with some impressive leg stretching, a lot of twitching, some windmilling and, finally punches both arms out. His head lolls down in triumph.

Elvis impersonators have always been the runt of the entertainment litter. But with the estate finally conferring legitimacy by hosting this competition, it looks as if things might be on the up. It was becoming impossible for them to ignore the phenomenon, really. There aren’t exact figures for just how many ETAs there are, but what is known is that there were between 37 to 150 working when Elvis died in 1977. Today there are well over 30,000 in the US alone. Add to that the Elvis armies in Asia and Europe, and the popular statistic bandied about on fan sites – that by the year 2020 one in ten people will be an ETA – doesn’t sound so implausible.

More than 30 heats have taken place in the Ultimate Elvis Contest. The last, next week in Norway, is charging the most of any – $150 (£74) to enter.

Back in Blackpool, more than 60 of Europe’s finest have battled it out. They come in all shapes and sizes, though there are no women and the only dark skin is due to heavy make-up. There are however a whole lot of pompadours and stuck-on sideburns. And, although the contest is for three decades of Elvis – Fifties, Sixties and Seventies – it is noticeable that there are a lot more snug Las Vegas-era jumpsuits than slimfit GI outfits.

Matti, 20, from Finland, is an exception. A professional rugby player, his imitation Epiphone acoustic is swinging at his side, a pink shirt peeps out from his herringbone jacket, “I wanted to do an Elvis my age. I’m too young for a jumpsuit.” He’s been practising for only a month and a half, and he wasn’t pleased with his performance (each gets a shot at two songs). “I think it went not so well, not like in rehearsal. It’s a shame my wife is not here, but she said if she had to stay in a room with 60 Elvises her head would explode. She likes Robbie Williams.”

Another youngster is Gino Monopoli, 30, a former bricklayer from Toronto. He’s the spit of the bambi-eyed GI Elvis and he knows it. Turning from checking his mascara in a silver ashtray, he leans in to murmur that his ambition is to “find a good woman and make some beautiful children”. He’s already taken part, and lost, in a contest held in Ontario and is planning to keep going till he wins. His plan will eventually pay off, last week he won in his home town of Ottawa.

Contrary to popular belief, most of the entrants are really nice and basically sane. The most you could accuse them of is overzealousness. And it’s not hard to see why they do it. A few are jobbing performers but most have mundane jobs. Here, they get to strut their stuff and, of course, everyone loves their material.

Just like in real showbiz, there are fans from 8 to 80 running around after them. Morgan Valentine, a nine-year-old from Wrexham, has ten autographs so far. “My schoolfriends are all like ‘football, football, football, but I like the King. My Nan got me into him.”

One of the most spry and vocal supporters is Candy Davies, 70, a former line dancer from Tampa Bay, Florida. “The English are too laid-back,” she says. “I feel like an idiot shouting. In the US everybody would be screaming. If you like them, you let them know.”

She first saw Elvis in 1956 at the Paramount Theatre in New York. “I was in love with Mario Lanza at the time, but that was it. The life. The country. We loved him as teenagers because here was someone sticking up for us.”

Davies has come up to Blackpool from Liverpool where she is visiting friends she met over the internet a few years ago. “Last time I came to see them, my husband of 40 years had died the year before, and I ended up falling in love with my taxi driver. Kismet! We’ve been married two years now.” Kenny Davies, 55, now lives with Candy in Florida, where among other things they make the scarves for an Elvis Tribute Act called Jelvis.

There’s a good camaraderie here. A peek into the dressing room shows Elvises helping each other with eyeliner and comparing the all important jumpsuits, “B&K is the Rolls-Royce. You get one of those and you’ve arrived,” says Darren H, 34, by day starring in the touring production of Mamma Mia!. B&K suits are made from the original patterns and overseen by Bill Belew, Elvis’s designer. They cost up to $5,000. “Mine actually isn’t a B&K,” Darren whispers. “I’ve found a UK company. I’ve had everyone asking about it. They’d kill me if they found out how much it cost.”

He won’t reveal his source as he’s hoping to get commissions, but later Julie Mundy, the impossibly glamorous and salty editor of www.elvis.co.uk and one of the event’s judges, declares that it must be Wested Leather, of Kent, also makers of the Indiana Jones jacket.

There are, of course, a few odd-balls. Ray Howells, 53, is walking around in civvy gear with moist eyes, his pint held close to his heart. He won the King of Spain Elvis contest in 1987, but six months ago his dog bit him in the neck and he’s been unable to sing since. A veteran of more than 150 contests, he is quite scary when he insists: “I’ve been doing this all my life. Before Elvis there was nothing, after, everything.”

And then there is Kjell “Norwegian Elvis” H. Bjornestad whose rumoured surgery is the first thing anyone wants to talk about. The alleged figures start at a modest £10,000, but by the end of the night they’re at £50,000. Backstage after a storming set he does look uncannily like him, Seventies, posttuck period, at least. He won’t be drawn on the subject of surgery. “I do a lot of work with muscle movement,” and, he says, waving his hand dramatically across his face, “it’s fantastic what you can do with paint.”

He says that he likes to be normal when he’s at home, but then reveals that he has built himself a mini-Graceland in his home town of Lyngdal. “I even have the columns.” Bjornestad is one of the revered few who make a living out of being an impersonator, but it hasn’t been easy for him. Asked what his parents think of his career, he sighs, exhibiting a pathos that his hero knew only too well. “It’s been a long road, but they are proud of me now.”

— The Ultimate Elvis Contest takes place in Graceland, August 12-17. www.elvis.com

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