Heartbreak played out with French passion seems to be inextricably linked to the career of Frances Ruffelle.

She famously won a Tony award aged just 21 for her portrayal of the lovelorn Éponine in Les Miserables, she has played mistress of sorrow Edith Piaf, and her new French-themed album out today (Oct 9) was recorded while she was going through her own devastating break-up.

Born in Wanstead Hospital she is the daughter of famous theatre school founder Sylvia Young, former wife of theatre director John Caird and the mother of singer Eliza Doolittle.

Here she reveals more about her loves, losses and inspirations.

On recording her sixth album I Say Yeh-Yeh in a former brothel in east London

It wasn’t recorded in a glamorous setting, it was a grungy basement in Cafe Music Studios in Bow. Our first production meeting was the day I broke up with a boyfriend and the whole album took a year and went from heartbreak to empowerment. So although we recorded it in three days I was so heartbroken I couldn’t sing. I panicked and thought ‘maybe I’ll never be able to sing again’ but as time went by my voice came back again. I rec-recorded most of the vocal but you can hear my heartbreak in the ones we kept.

On her musical inspiration

I love French music and I just felt like doing a French album but I couldn’t do it until I found a really good producer. It is something that has been growing in me for a while and I finally got to do it. The album was inspired by singers like Edith Piaf and the 50s music I grew up listening to and learning to sing to, girls bands and Motown. Shangri-la were my favourite I used to listen to You Can Never Go Home Anymore over and over again. Also Diana young, Donna Summer, Barbara Streisland, A Star is Born is one of my favourite albums. France was the first country I went to as a child as my mum and dad had a godchild in Paris but no, we’re not French but everyone assumes I am as I have a kind of fantasy about it.

On revisiting two songs from Les Miserables

I knew I wanted to do L’un Vers L’autre, the song cut from Les Miserables because I absolutely love that song and it’s the song Claude (Schönberg) and Alain (Boublil) played me when I got the job and I always planned to record it. But On My Own I wasn’t going to revisit after 30 years but my producer Gwyneth Herbert said ‘you can’t do a Parisian themed album and not put it on’. So she managed to persuade me and I’m really glad because I feel like now I sing it as a woman, not as a child. I didn’t know when I got the part in Les Miserables that it would be such a hit but I knew it was a very special piece and when I got the job I was thrilled to get such a beautiful role.

On where she keeps her Tony award

You’ll laugh. My parents used to have it because I used to be embarrassed to have it on the shelf. As I got older I thought I should have it out but I’m embarrassed to say that all my awards are in my bathroom drawer. I am proud of them but at the same time if you came to my house you would never know I was in the music or theatre business because I don’t have anything up on the walls that shows what I do. I don’t want to live around it. I want my home to just be my home.

On her hobbies

Eating, I do a lot of yoga and go to the gym and walk the dog and chat to my kids and friends, go to the theatre and just lounge around on my Parisian sofa with my old antique Parisian farmhouse tiles. I don’t go out too much these days, I’m quite homey. When I’m really busy at work it makes me excited and happy but I get quite stressed, I’m quite a nervy person. So sometimes when I’ve had a big busy work period and don’t have anything to do I do like being rather lazy. But I’m usually only happy if I know I have something lined up otherwise I get panicky.

On falling pregnant at 21

It’s difficult because I do feel like I didn’t put one hundred per cent into being a mum or one hundred per cent into my career so I always felt slightly guilty on both sides. But now my kids have turned out brilliantly so whatever I did worked and I’m happy to say they are lovely children, lovely grownup I should say. And now I have time to dedicate to my career, so everything has worked out well.

On daughter Eliza following on her footsteps

I was worried when she said she wanted to be a singer because we all know there are hard parts of this job but I made sure she was aware that she needed to take it seriously and write songs and she did and started writing songs at 13 and by 18 had her own publishing deal and just got everything going on her own and didn’t use any of my contacts. She didn’t want anything to do with me professionally which is great. Sometime she listen to what I saw but sometime she doesn’t want to- it’s like any mother daughter relationship.

On having Sylvia Young as her mother

She took me to the theatre a lot when I was young and I got my love of it from her so it did have a big influence on me and I’m very proud of what she does. When I got thrown out of her school it was fine because I left school at 15 anyway. It was better because I was at that age when you don’t want to be at school with your mum, it doesn’t work.

On her career on stage

I had performing in my bones all the time, I don’t remember deciding it. My mum used to sing old time music hall and I used to go and sit by the stage and sing really loudly with her and in the end she used to take me on. I remember when I first sang a solo when I was four or five and for the first time my heart beat really fast and I could almost feel it coming out of me. I did a few bits and pieces growing up but once I left school it just didn’t stop. I don’t think I realised how big it all was in a funny way. Getting into the West End when I was 17 was amazing but it only all dawned on me when I went to New York and got the Tony Award because those were the awards I used to watch on the telly and I wondered ‘how did I manage to get myself up for that?’

On being a Londoner

I was born in Wanstead Hospital and grew up in Aldersbrook then moved to Leytonstone and spent a lot of time in London Fields as that’s where my grandparents lived. I have been in Primrose Hill for 20 years now. I like being near a big park and you can walk to Oxford Street in 20 mins and one of my best friends was born there so since I was 11 I have stayed there. But all my sons are moving back east to Hoxton and Hackney and I love going over east, it’s so cool these days, even Leytonstone where I lived with my family is a really great place. When I was there it wasn’t as nice as it is now. My parents live in Marble Arch now and still work.

Frances will perform at Crazy Coqs, Brasserie Zédel, Sherwood Street, Picadilly,W1F 7ED from October 13 to 17. Details: brasseriezedel.com/crazy-coqs

Her album I Say Yeh-Yeh is released today (Oct 9). Details: FrancesRuffelle.com