For one night only, the glory days of British cinema will return to a corner of north London, as over 1,000 people settle down to an organ recital, a newsreel almost half a century out of date, a feature film, and a sky full of stars twinkling over a Moorish village.
Some of the stars have been dimmed. Although the Grade II* listed Finsbury Astoria has been meticulously restored, the local council took a dim view of the original twinkling mechanism, which involved crossing two hot wires which lit a bulb and then pulled apart as they cooled - all buried in highly flammable lath and plaster and painted canvas.
The cinema was built in 1930 with almost 3,000 seats, in a jaw dropping style described as "atmospheric", which even Footballer's Wives might think slightly over the top. The building was a sodden vandalised ruin 10 years ago, and has been dragged back from dereliction at a cost of over £1m, entirely paid for by the Brazil-based Universal Church of the Kingdom of God.
The style was imported from America and although the exterior is extremely plain, inside was a fantasy world. Creating the atmosphere involved piling on exotic decorative detail: swags of fruit and flowers, orange trees, tiled roof tops, grilled windows, nail studded doors, Moorish arabesques and Roman columns. The domed entrance hall of the Astoria once again has a working fountain, complete with goldfish.
The cinema is the least altered survivor of four giants built in London in just three years from 1929, adding up to almost 15,000 cinema seats. The last film was shown in September 1971, but many remember its rowdy reincarnation as The Rainbow rock music venue, before the building was abandoned.
Richard Gray, chairman of the Cinema Theatre Association, describes it as "one of the greatest cinemas of its kind in Europe", and its restoration as astonishing. "These buildings are very intractable. Most uses involve drastically altering the interiors; even continuing cinema use invariably means them being chopped up into smaller cinemas. Church use is one of the least intrusive ways of finding a continuing use for these vast buildings."
The Universal Church of the Kingdom of God attracted intense media attention in the investigation into the tragic death of Victoria Climbie, because her aunt had brought the child there claiming that she was possessed by demons. The church blames the controversy for the refusal of planning permission to convert another giant cinema, in Walthamstow. The church paid the full cost of restoration of the Astoria, believed to be well over £1m, without grant aid, and Pastor Paul Hill, property manager for UCKG, said all 1,800 seats in the stalls are filled for Sunday services.
The building has never opened to the general public since the restoration. The first chance to see the restored cinema will be on February 28, when the Cinema Theatre Association has rented it for one night, and will be showing the 1950 classic Sunset Boulevard, with shorts and an organ recital - only the dancing girls, who once tapped their way across the stage, up the back stairs, and across the bridge above the stage, will be missing.
· Cinema Theatre Association 020 8981 7844.
