1 week Ago By Liz Hobday
UK author and podcaster Dolly Alderton's most recent bestseller is titled Good Material, but fans say there was precious little of it at one event on her Australian tour. Hundreds are complaining online that the host of Alderton's second night in Melbourne, Hugh van Cuylenburg, dominated proceedings by talking about himself. "We are devastated by how shocking the interview was.
I know more about Hugh than Dolly, he needed to stop his mansplaining," said two fans who flew from Adelaide for the show on Thursday. "He is the epitome of white male entitlement and tone deafness ..
. speaking over women he purports to support," posted another on TikTok. Also a podcaster and author, van Cuylenburg is known for his book The Resilience Project and mental health organisation of the same name, as well as his podcast The Imperfects.
Often billed as "The Resilience Guy", van Cuylenburg has done hundreds of corporate speaking engagements and is known for encouraging healthy masculinity. In general, hundreds of comments on platforms including TikTok and Instagram expressed the view that van Cuylenburg should have given the star of the show space to speak. Van Cuylenburg has contacted at least one audience member personally to apologise for his performance.
The Resilience Project, Alderton's publisher Penguin Random House, and organisers of her national tour, Fane Australia, have been contacted for comment. Premium tickets to the event at Hamer Hall cost $149 and the 2500-seat venue was almost full on Thursday night. Some audience members heckled van Cuylenburg during the second half of the show, calling out "let her speak" and others said this made them even more uncomfortable.
"The crowd's heckling felt entirely uncalled for and rude, it ruined the evening for many people sitting around me," said one fan on TikTok. Across the seven-date national tour, van Cuylenburg is the only man to host an event. Alderton's next show is in Brisbane on Sunday with the author of Figuring Out 30, Bridget Hustwaite.
Her memoir, Everything I Know About Love, has been made into a hit television series, and an advice column in the Sunday Times titled Dear Dolly has also been made into a book..
