This is my moment of glory' Nicolas Cage wannabes gather as lookalike contest craze booms

Nicolas Cage wannabes gather as lookalike contest craze booms

- Esther Addley

On a sunny, bustling late afternoon outside a cinema in London's Soho, more than 100 people gathered for a lookalike contest - and they do, sort of, if you squint, look a little bit like the actor Nicolas Cage.

There is a Raising Arizona Cage, moustachioed and with a Hawaiian shirt. There are several Con Air Cages in white vests, one with a toy bunny in a small cardboard box. Several can claim an uncanny likeness to the actor; others might be closer to Cage's character in Face/Off, who surgically swaps his face for John Travolta's.

For a performer whose public persona is never less than eccentric, multiple Cages might feel entirely appropriate. The explanation for this event is more prosaic. The actor has a new film out, The Surfer ("gloriously demented" - the Guardian), and there's no surer way to gain publicity than with a supposedly spontaneous, deliberately ramshackle celebrity lookalike contest.