Likewise in Middlesbrough Kevin, the old ABC here is now a busy town-centre "fun-pub". I did once go in to see what they'd done to what was a lovely old building but I didn't stay for a second drink.
Todays trendy new edge-of-town multi-screen cinema complexes seem to be a success and I've enjoyed their facilities many times myself but I could never understand how the cinema industry practically wiped itself out at the onset of the VCR movie-rental trade.
Their reaction to rapidly falling nubers? Put admission prices up!
Didn't work? Put them up some more!
All they needed was a face-lift, get rid of the old "flea-pit" image and modernise themselves but that would have taken investment at the very time they were under thread.
These days the home-rental and cinema industries seem to be able to live alongside each other and survive nicely but some of those beautiful old cinemas should never have been allowed to be turned into night-clubs and car parks.