Stars join protest to save cinema

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More than 100 protesters are expected to attend a candlelit vigil outside the EMD cinema in Walthamstow tomorrow night. They will wear Alfred Hitchcock masks - the director got his first taste of movies at the picture house.

The cinema is the last example of several in London designed by Russian theatre director Theodore Komisarjevsky, who was married to actress Dame Peggy Ashcroft. It opened as the Victoria dance hall in 1887 and was refurbished as a cinema with Oriental-style interiors by Komisarjevsky in 1930.

The Grade II-listed building closed as a cinema in 2003 and was bought by the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God - a Brazilian church which provoked controversy with its belief that illnesses are caused by "demons" that must be exorcised.

UCKG's original plans to turn it into a church were rejected but new proposals are to be submitted to Waltham Forest council. Robinson said: "It's where my teenage years were opened to the great jazz and rock '*' roll artists of the Sixties and where I saw a host of great movies. It would be crazy to turn our backs on such a magnificent venue."

Syal added: "It would be a tragedy if the film-lovers of east London were to be deprived of this beautiful jewel of a cinema."

Terry Wheeler, Waltham Forest's cabinet member for enterprise and investment, said the church had sought advice from the council about its proposals and there would be full public consultation on the project.