Sameer is caught between two worlds: the demands of his Indian family and the lure of a less traditional life. He’s dropped out of his Cambridge economics PhD to study at UCLA, he’s got no intention of marrying, and he’s had a vasectomy – without telling his parents. Will he still be loved if he tells the honest truth?
The Counting House is packed for Saturday’s show, which covers material as diverse as the cost of having children, the difficulty of making friends, and the perils of coming from a large, traditional Indian family where you’ve memorised at least a hundred relatives’ names. It walks a path between safe and edgy and won’t be to everyone’s taste; for every musing on the choices made in life there’s an extended description of intimate surgery or opinions on suicide that didn’t seem to go down well. There’s some great observations on social media ‘influencers’ and dating in the modern world, however, and the audience warmed to the more general content.
Katz has a cool, relaxed delivery and a likeable presence, which is just as well in what’s a very hot and stuffy attic. It may have been the heat, but unfortunately some of the material didn’t land as he expected. Perhaps it needed a small amount of restructuring around the main theme, but Whether Conditions certainly shows promise.
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Sameer Katz: Whether Conditions is at Counting House from 18-25 Aug