A play by Mercury Prize nominee Kate Tempest gives Kent audiences the chance to experience the rising star’s genius.

Hopelessly Devoted tells the story of Chess, a prisoner with a powerful singing voice. The play combines drama, lyrical fireworks and live music.

It is coming to Maidstone’s Hazlitt Theatre later this month.

Following her acclaimed playwriting debut Wasted, which toured Kent last year, rapper and slam poet Kate, 28, was described in one review as “one of the most exciting young writers working in Britain today”.

She became the first person under 40 to win the Ted Hughes Award for innovation in poetry, winning the accolade in 2013 for her work Brand New Ancients. This year Kate was tipped to win the Mercury Prize for her album Everybody Down, but was pipped at the post by Young Fathers for the album Dead.

Always keen to push herself to perform anywhere, Kate played to female inmates in Holloway prison, an experience which inspired Hopelessly Devoted.

She said: “I wanted to connect with these women. I felt this familiar fire that I used to feel when I was rapping – this eagerness and this sense of importance of telling and being heard.”

Hopelessly Devoted by Kate Tempest is recommended for those aged 14 and over.

The show also appears at Maidstone’s Hazlitt Theatre on Friday, November 28, at 7.30pm. Tickets cost £10. Visit www.parkwoodtheatres.co.uk or call 01622 758611.