On our visit to the Finsbury Park Astoria earlier today Stefan mentioned that he'd looked into the UKCG group who now run the former cinema as a church and was surprised by what he found.
For more explicit accounts and less restraint (Wikipedia is open and can be edited by the users) check http://www.rickross.com/reference/universal/universal37.html
If you follow the link down the page (To see more documents...) there are other stories also about bids for cinemas (the historic EMD cinema in Walthamstow) . It's not about the Astoria but quite eye-opening.
By the way, big thanks to Hugh for setting up the opportunity to have a look inside the building. It was a most unexpected sight and whatever i think about the guys running it now, they did a perfect job. You can't really discuss kitsch, some places they went clearly overboard) but all in all: What a beauty!