This week is crucial in the battle to save Waltham Forest’s last cinema. A candlelit vigil is planned outside the Granada/EMD, in Hoe Street, E17, at 8pm on Saturday 18 April – all welcome to join in, and there will be entertainment afterwards.

Meanwhile, the building’s secretive owners, the UCKG, are allowing visitors to an exhibition of their plans to turn it into a meeting place tonight and tomorrow - Thursday and Friday evenings, the 16th and 17th. Go to St Gabriel's Church and Family Centre in Havant Road, E17 and register your views between 5.30 and 8pm Thursday or Friday 4pm-8pm. For friendly company, many cinema supporters will be going at 7pm on the Friday.

The shame of Alfred Hitchcock’s birthplace losing every one of its cinemas has rallied some big names to the cause. Among these former local residents are award-winning author Meera Syal and actor Tony Robinson, best loved for his role as dim-witted servant Baldrick in the Blackadder series.

As Baldrick’s boss once taunted him about his lack of culture: “To you, the renaissance was just something that happened to other people!” Walthamstow today is in much the same position. Not because we lack any appetite for arts or entertainment, but because Waltham Forest council is actively closing down every venue where we could enjoy them. Where it doesn’t own the venue, as with the cinema and the dog track, the council is allowing owners to change the use to one that makes them more money, at the expense of the local community.

Yet small specialist cinemas like the Granada/EMD have been successfully revived in other parts of London. So join the vigil, visit the exhibition, make your voice heard. Don’t let the renaissance pass Walthamstow by!