Homegrown songstress Alison Moyet performs at the Cliffs Pavilion this Friday.

Alison, who grew up in Basildon, released a retrospective on her 25-year career, Revisited: The Very Best of Alison Moyet, last month.

“It’s hard to look back and see how you were then, but now I can look back and see myself differently and also see how far I have come,” says Alison, 48, who now lives in Hertfordshire.

“It does feel like 25 years. If it was the case I had had an amazing time when I was 20, maybe I would think differently but, as my life got better after 30, I don't.”

One thing that has remained a constant is Alison’s love for Essex.

“There isn’t just a part of me that misses the old days growing up in Essex and the punk bands, it’s all of me! A lot of my friends wanted to get out of there when we were growing up, but I never did, so I was slightly bereft when I did leave. It’s strange I was the one to go – they were my friends, my people. You never get that again,” she recalls.

The 20-track anthology features hits including This House, That Ole Devil Called Love and Love Letters, as well as Almost Blue from 2004’s Voice album.

“You can’t make an album like this without the hits, and so there is very little room to fit in the songs that are close to your heart and there were tons that I wanted to put in from my last three albums,” says Alison.

Alison clearly enjoyed putting a twist on her past hits in the 11 re-recorded tracks on the special edition of the album.

“The tracks were done in 21 days and so it’s not a studio album or a karaoke show. It was about singing them in one genre. It has an organic feel and all the songs are stripped down,” she says.

The hard-working star has her sights set on making a new album.

“I am working on new material at the moment, and once the tour is done that is what I am going to be doing,” she says. Alison Moyet performs at Cliffs on Friday, at 8pm. Tickets cost from £25. Call 01702 351135 for more information.