Join Nina on her multicultural, mixed-up and unfinished journey to matrimony.
[star rating =3/4]
Like most millennials, Nina Chhibber Williams wants to settle down and find a relationship. One that can, ideally, live up to the standard set by her parents’ marriage of forty-plus years.
But Williams’ search for ‘the one’ is more complicated than most of her fellow millennials.
As an Indian-American raised in Buffalo in the USA she wants to find someone who shares her heritage and her love for Indian culture.
In Om Shaadi Om Williams takes the audience on a whirlwind journey through the Indian ideals of partnership and marriage, symbolised by the traditional Indian marriage ceremony.
Williams’ attempts to sort through her cultural baggage include allowing her mother to set up an online dating profile on an Indian marriage website while uncomfortably listening to her aunties compliment her on her light skin tone.
Using a variety of props and wearing a colourful sari, William’s gives her audience a glimpse into a world which may be entirely foreign to them.
However, for those coming from multi-cultural backgrounds or communities themselves the show might fall a little flat even as they identify with her struggles.
While Williams represents the internal struggle between tradition and modernity well, the show fails to do more than skim the surface of how this might impact on a relationship or how she plans to address it in her future relationships.
The link between anecdotes is also sometimes tenuous and occasionally obscured in favour of more opportunities for audience participation.
Om Shaadi Om is undoubtedly fun and Williams is an engaging and knowledgeable performer. However, in this case it felt as if more depth could have been mined from the show’s premise to produce a richer show with deeper content.
