Konnie Huq
Kanak Asha “Konnie” Huq (/ˈhʌk/; born 17 July 1975) is a British television and radio presenter, screenwriter and children’s author. She became the longest-serving female presenter of the British children’s television programme Blue Peter, presenting it from 1997 to 2008. She has been a presenter and guest of shows including the 2010 series of The Xtra Factor on ITV2.
She co-wrote the Black Mirror episode “Fifteen Million Merits” with her husband, Charlie Brooker. Her children’s book Cookie and the Most Annoying Boy in the World was published in 2019. She published the follow-up, Cookie and the Most Annoying Girl in the World, in 2020 along with her third children’s book, Fearless Fairy Tales: The Perfect Book for Homeschooling Fun and Inspiration.
Early life
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Kanak Asha Huq was born in the Hammersmith district of London on 17 July 1975,[1][2] the daughter of Muslim parents who emigrated from East Pakistan in the 1960s.[2][3][4] She grew up in the Ealing district of London with her two elder sisters, Nutun, and future Labour Party politician Rupa. She attended Notting Hill & Ealing High School and obtained nine GCSEs, then gained A-levels in chemistry, mathematics, and physics.[5] She went on to study economics at Robinson College, Cambridge, graduating with a 2:1 degree.[4][6]
Career
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Early work
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Huq trained part-time at the National Youth Music Theatre.[7] In 1989, at the age of 14, she appeared with them on Blue Peter and sang a solo.[8] The following year, she appeared alongside Jude Law in Captain Stirrick, a National Youth Music Theatre production.[9]
Before the 1992 general election, Huq interviewed Labour leader Neil Kinnock for the children’s programme Newsround, and appeared as a contestant on Blockbusters in the same year.[10] She appeared as an uncredited extra playing a schoolgirl in the BBC1 sitcom 2point4 Children in the Series 2 episode “I’m Going Slightly Mad”.[11]
Her presenting debut, at the age of 16, was on the satellite television show, TVFM.[12] She then appeared on a GMTV Saturday morning children’s quiz show entitled Eat Your Words between 1994 and 1996.[13] She was assisted by Mark Speight before Simon Parkin took over. In 1997, several months before joining Blue Peter, Huq presented Channel Five‘s early morning children’s programme Milkshake![14]
Blue Peter
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Huq presented the BBC children’s television programme Blue Peter, starting on 1 December 1997.[15][16] Early in her term as a presenter, she visited the village in Bangladesh where earlier generations of her family lived.[15] In the programme’s 2004 Summer Expedition to India, Huq became an extra in the Bollywood film Musafir (2004), and practised dancing alongside its stars.[17][18] For the programme’s 2004 Welcome Home appeal, she visited Angola, hoping to reunite children and their families who had been separated due to war.[19] In 2008, during her last programme, she broke a Guinness World Record by pinning 17 Blue Peter Badges onto fellow presenter Andy Akinwolere‘s shirt in a minute.[20] In March 2007, she apologised on air on behalf of the programme to viewers, after the result of a competition to identify the celebrity owner of a pair of shoes was faked.[21]
On 31 May 2007, Huq announced she would be leaving Blue Peter. On 22 January 2008, she hosted her final Blue Peter, with a clip show of her highlights through the ten years she had been on the programme.[22] She is the third longest-serving Blue Peter presenter and its longest-serving female host, having passed Valerie Singleton‘s record on 1 October 2007.[23] She holds the record for working with the most co-presenters while on the show, with a total of 10. These are Stuart Miles, Katy Hill, Romana D’Annunzio, Richard Bacon, Simon Thomas, Matt Baker, Liz Barker, Zoe Salmon, Gethin Jones and Andy Akinwolere.
