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says. “Darren’s sensitivity to the old people he was performing to and the way that he could reach people who had dementia and make a connection with them by appearing as Elvis was very powerful.” The documentary was shown on BBC Wales, BBC One, BBC4, BBC2 and iPlayer. Toyne has many standout moments from filming, including


a ‘lone chap’ dressed as Elvis with a beaten-up acoustic guitar singing The Wonder of You, out of tune, in the street. “He encapsulated the spirit of the festival with passers-by


cheering him on, in the same way that they embraced and cheered on the best acts in the pavilion,” he says. “I think, sometimes, as journalists and filmmakers, you can


fall into cynicism, but there was just a collective sense of celebration. If there was an Elvis who wasn’t the best, that wasn’t important – it was the fact that person knew their Elvis and loved their Elvis that there was every reason to celebrate them.” For French photographer Clementine Schneidermann, the


festival inspired a book and a five-year project, eventually taking her to Memphis. Schneidermann first visited the festival as a young photographer in 2013 after moving to Wales. Intrigued, she began exploring the cult of Elvis in working-class towns in south Wales and, in 2014, visited the festival again and met young Elvis tribute act John-Paul from Wigan. When John- Paul travelled to Memphis with his mother and grandmother to perform under the stage name Johnny B. Goode, Schneidermann followed his progress. Inspired by the idea of the American Dream meets Brexit Britain, in 2018, she published a book entitled I Called Her Lisa Marie. “It had a big impact on my work. I published a photo book,


which includes a lot of images made at the festival, which are probably some of the best images from my project,” she says. “Meeting John Paul and his family in Porthcawl in 2014 was a big moment for me.” The photographs were exhibited at the Sion and Moore


Gallery in London and featured in the New York Times, and M Le Magazine du Monde.


“Nothing prepared me for the sight of hundreds of Elvis lookalikes, not to mention the army of impersonators belting out the King’s back catalogue.” Richard Morgan, on-screen journalist, ITV


“It was both the exuberance and scale of it that struck me, also the inclusivity of it.” Robin Toyne, filmmaker and director of Mad About Elvis


“It had a depth that I didn’t realise.” Robbie Griffiths, freelance journalist


Schneidermann says the festival has become harder to photograph now because of its popularity and as we have become “a bit saturated by images of people wearing Elvis wigs, big sunglasses and sideburns”, but she


believes there is always room to make something different. Freelance journalist Robbie Griffiths writes for Private Eye


and was editor of the Londoner’s Diary column in the Evening Standard. He has a background in newspapers, but wanted to expand his skills and break into radio, so he visited the festival last year and did a piece for American public broadcasting network NPR. Griffiths took the photos, interviewing and editing himself. He spent three days at the festival and only had four minutes of radio to fill. He found a depth he wasn’t expecting. “It was interesting that this so iconic American figure


somehow chimes with south Wales and its former industrial heartland. It just somehow works that these two very disparate places – Memphis and south Wales – fit together. It makes the story.” The broadcast went out to NPR’s six million listeners and


gave Griffiths the leap into radio he wanted. He is now a freelance editor for NPR on weekends. BBC Wales broadcaster Owen Money has been broadcasting from the festival for 15 years. “It’s huge, absolutely huge,” he says. “Every year, I think


that’s it, it will splinter out a bit now, but every year they come and even more come.” “We start our programme on a Saturday at 9 o’clock and


you think nobody is going to be up and, by a quarter to nine, there are 500 people in the tent.” Among his standout moments was a ‘drunken Elvis’, who could sing the Wonder of You in seven seconds. Money says there are still plenty of stories from the Elvis tribute artists, who travel from all over the world. “A lot of the good ones really do think they’re Elvis, but there are a lot of them who are plumbers and carpenters who go back to their day job on a Monday,” he says. “For that weekend, they become stars and it’s great to see.”


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