Readers had to look long and hard at Christina Spencer on Monday to tell her apart from the real Kate Middleton. However, the 26-year-old is not the first lookalike to feature in The Argus.

Reporter BEN JAMES looks through the archives.

Tim Oliver could barely make it to the end of the street back in 2005 without someone shouting “do the dance”.

The then 40-year-old from East Grinstead bore a striking resemblance to the Ricky Gervais Office character David Brent.

Not only did Mr Oliver share Brent’s goatee beard and rounded frame, he even had his same mannerisms.

When he visited Brighton back in July 2005, passers-by had to double-take. Some asked for his autograph while others simply shouted at him to “do the dance” – made famous in the show’s Comic Relief episode.

Such was the likeness he was taken on by a professional lookalike agency and even met Ricky Gervias for a TV appearance.

Speaking to The Argus back in 2005, he said: “I just cannot believe it has taken off so well. What started off as a joke has become my full-time job.

“My wife, Sarah, and my three young children love it. I still keep my casino business going but life for me now is mainly being David Brent.

“I am taking his advice: if at first you don’t succeed, remove all evidence you ever tried.

“But I am staying in Sussex and not moving to Slough or a new office in Swindon.”

While Mr Oliver had to do little more than pop on a dodgy looking suit and a tie, Gaby Randone took more extreme measures to look more like her idol.

The then 23-year-old from Eastbourne appeared in The Argus in 2009 due to her resemblance to Katie Price.

She told our reporter how she had spent more than £11,000 trying to look more like the glamour model which included having a breast enlargement operation.

However, the cost, she said, was worth it with modelling and appearance jobs coming in as a result.

She even stood in to pose with fans when the real Katie Price was rushed away from a book signing event at the Bluewater shopping centre in Kent.

She said: “The best thing about being a lookalike is getting to see different parts of the country and having interesting experiences.

“On one photo-shoot I had to get over my fear of snakes because I was posing with a python wrapped around me.”

Asked about the downsides, she said: “Other women can be a bit catty.

“Even Katie criticised my looks a bit when she was asked about me in an interview, but she did say I’m a good likeness and she was really nice when I met her.”

Back in 2004 we spoke to George Clooney lookalike Gary Tate who received a job offer of a different kind.

Mr Tate, from Stone Cross near Eastbourne, was offered £5,000 to sleep with another man’s wife.

When he declined, the businessman upped the money and begged him, saying his wife was swooney over Clooney.

Gary said: “He kept ringing me and hassling me to do it and every time the money crept up.

“At the time I wasn’t with anyone so I could have done it but in the end I thought it would make me feel like a prostitute so I turned him down.

“The husband was deadly serious about it and would have gone through with it but I couldn’t. He didn’t send me a photograph and I didn’t ask for one.”

When we spoke to him, Mr Tate was earning up to £600 a night doubling for Clooney.

He still kept his job running a double-glazing business in Eastbourne. However, he made a good bit of pocket money by opening casinos, attending parties, doing TV advertising and generally looking like Clooney when required.

Amy Sycamore, a Britney Spears lookalike, was also making money from her appearance in 2002.

She gave up her geography course at Bath University to try and break into show business.

The then 21-year-old was signed with a Lookalikes Agency after winning a Stars in Their Eyes competition.

She said: “I entered the competition because several people told me I looked like Britney and I’m interested in a singing career.

“I didn’t think I would get anywhere when I saw the others who were there.

“I like many of Britney’s songs. She is a good role model for teenage girls.

“But it’s my main ambition to be a singer in my own right.”

Amy was given a professional makeover and set about recording her own CD, copying Britney’s layered and highlighted hair.

Amy said: “I have always sung, mostly to myself or friends and family.

“I was in a school choir and church choir when I was younger.

“Before people started telling me I looked like Britney I never thought about it but now I can see the resemblance.

“People I work with have called me Britney quite a few times too.”

Asked if she would adopt Britney’s stance on no sex before marriage, Amy said: “No comment”.