RACKS | Imperial College Dramatic Society (ICDS) | theSpace @Niddry St & theSpace on the Mile

The Imperial College Dramatic Society (ICDS) has been staging bold, inventive theatre for over 100 years—proving that STEM students from one of the UK’s top universities know how to bring serious drama to the stage. With a legacy rooted in experimentation and creativity, ICDS continues to surprise audiences with productions that are as clever as they are compelling.

Their latest Fringe show, RACKS, offers a fresh twist on the classic musical Guys and Dolls. When three cast members—Sky Masterson, Benny Southstreet, and Miss Adelaide—get locked in the costume cupboard just before tech week, a simple impressions game turns into a revealing night of confessions, chaos, and connection. It’s a smart, funny, and unexpectedly heartfelt exploration of identity, performance, and the stories we tell when no one’s watching.

I met part of the team on the Royal Mile during their run of RACKS, where they spoke passionately about their process and gave advice for other student companies who want to have a go.

TRANSCRIPT

Hello, we are here with Jack from RACKS and Jack's going to tell us all about his show that's coming along. So firstly Jack, please tell us briefly about your show and what it's all about. Yeah that's great.

Rax is a comedy play set a week before opening night of Guys and Dolls and three of the cast at secondary school get trapped in the costume cupboard and we get to perform lots of numbers from other shows and it's a queer coming-of-age story, it's a lot of fun. Amazing, and how's your response been for the last two shows? Yeah really great, we've had more and more people come, it's great fun flyering on the mall and trying to get people to come. Where have you come from? We've come from London, we're part of the Imperial Drama Society.

And what made you decide to come up to Edinburgh? So we've brought a couple of shows in the past, I was actually here last year with a show that we brought up, they've all been student written theatre and part of the year of the shows that we make in the year is to fund trips like these because it's a lot of fun. And you are a student are you? Yes, yeah I just finished. And what were you studying? Computer Science.

Computer Science, that's what my partner does. Amazing, bit of a curveball. Exactly, a special thing with Imperial because we're all STEM students so it's fun to have these drama outlets.

Yeah perfect, that's awesome. How did you fund or sort of budget the show? You said briefly. Yeah so we did a brief run at the Riverside Studios which is in Hammersmith which helped to fund some of the shows and then throughout the year we also have other shows which make some money which we can then put into fund this as well but lots of it also comes from us.

Nice and how long a run are you doing? We have two weeks. Perfect, excellent. And can you give us a rough idea of what your budget is or are you sort of on the performance side? So I think as in the main cost is for the venue which as on the cast I'm not quite sure the numbers but it is a lot and to make to break even we have to get 25 people a night which doesn't sound like a lot but when you don't know anyone it is actually quite a lot.

And whereabouts are you staying while you're here? We're staying about 20 minutes out and it's spread across a couple of locations to try and bring the costs down. What's been the hardest part about preparing? I've done this before so I really like it but I think what really helps is having performed the show before because when you're here you just have a tech show, you don't have a dress, you just have a check and you just have to go straight into it. We were lucky because we had a couple of shows before but people who don't have that it's straight in, you've got to get straight in.

Awesome, what's your daily schedule look like? How much flyering do you do? We do try to do at least two hours of flyering a day and because our show's early afternoon we try to do that in the morning and then have the rest of the day off for other shows. Perfect. How do you handle your marketing, social media, stuff like that? Yeah it's interesting because a lot of our social media followers are all down in London so they're not quite as helpful but we have still been posting to keep them up to date of what's going on.

We haven't paid for any advertising here but it's mainly flyering and talking to other groups of theatres who want to come along and we'll go back to their show. Do you have any tips for managing burnout having been here before or avoiding fringe flu? Yeah I mean I have been going to sleep earlier than the rest of my cast. Excellent.

Definitely got to keep sleeping especially when you're here for longer than a week otherwise and we're also splitting up cooking so one of us does cooking and then might take a day off flyering if they need to and so the others can come back and don't have to worry about food. So just about having a nice team that you can rely on. Exactly yeah it helps having a really fun group.

What advice would you give to first-timers who are coming up? Oh just go for it like I'm wearing something silly but it's such good fun you've just got to push out and go beyond your comfort zone. Just go wild I mean that's why we're here at The Fringe. Awesome and can you sum up your own fringe experiences in one sentence? Oh I love theatre and it's the first professional place that I've performed at and it's just such fun to give back and give back to such a wonderful festival.

Nice and finally where can we find you where are you on what are your socials? Yes we are performing at Nidri Street which is right in the centre just at the bottom of the mile at five to four every day this week and then also a little bit earlier at five to two sorry no 35 past one for next week as well 25 to two there we go yeah perfect thank you very much