HAZEL O’Connor became a household name back in 1980 with the film Breaking Glass which charted the rise and fall of a young singer-songwriter in the music business.

Now, 38 years later, Hazel is to come to Manchester for a special evening which will feature a screening of the digitally re-mastered, uncut version of the film followed by a question and answer session and a live performance of classic songs such as Will You and Eighth Day.

The show, at the Royal Northern College of Music, is one of just three dates in the UK.

“I won’t be watching the film,” she said. “I don’t want to look at myself when I was slimmer and I can’t stand my voice, it was so squeaky back then,” she said. “We did something like this four or five years ago and I did watch the movie then so I’m sure nothing’s changed. I’m sure that girl’s still slimmer than I am and that she’s still got a squeakier voice than I have now.”

Hazel, now 63, does appreciate the impact that Breaking Glass had and still has today.

She said: “I’m touring a lot more now and seeing a lot more people and I hear all these comments about how much the film and the soundtrack affected a lot of kids' lives in those days. Those kids are now men and women in their 50s.

“At the time it never occurred to me that there would be any kind of legacy with the film and the songs. All I could think was how lucky I was that somebody was letting me write a whole bunch of songs for a film and which meant I’d be getting them out to people I wouldn’t normally get my music out to.”

For all the film and soundtrack album’s success - the album reached number five in the album charts, and two singles made the top 10 - Hazel never really got the credit that she deserved.

“I took so much flak from music industry writers,” she said. “There was this assumption I was this silly little thing who had been brought out of acting school and given a film and fixed up with a bunch of songs.

“They couldn’t accept that I was a singer who actually wrote the songs and who could act. By the time they had done their research, for me the damage was already done. I was already hurt and it took me quite a long time to get over being reviled by the popular music press at that time who didn’t think I was an authentic artist.

“I was little ahead of the time and I took the flak for it.”

Heavily influenced by science fiction, for all its hit singles, Breaking Glass was a hard hitting look at technology and the music industry.

“It wasn’t just about fashion,” said Hazel. “It was saying something about the world we were living in - and we’re still living in that blooming world now. In the old days critics would accuse me of being nihilistic and at the time I didn’t even know what that meant. But, you know what, a lot of those lyrics are still relevant today, they are still true.”

The format for next week’s special evening will give Hazel a chance to present a slightly different concert.

“You know me, I do like a chat with the audience,” she laughed. “But by having a Q&A session at the end of the film it means I can do that and then just go on and then just sing.”

Her set will include songs from Breaking Glass plus a couple of new songs.

“One is I Will Always Be There which is based on a poem my mum wrote for me and my brother,” said Hazel. “I found it in her stuff after she died and put it to music.”

Hazel O’Connor, RNCM, Manchester, Wednesday, November 14. Details from 0161 907 5200 or www.rncm.ac.uk