Kanak "Konnie" Huq ( ;
Bengali: কনি হক; born 17 July 1975)
is an English
television presenter, who is best known for being
the longest-serving female presenter of Blue Peter
, having presented it from 1 December 1997
until 23 January 2008.
Early and personal life
Huq is of
Bangladeshi descent, her parents
moved to England from a
village in Pabna, west of Bangladesh
during the 1960s and she was
born in Hammersmith
, but grew up in Ealing
, London
, with her
two sisters, Rupa and Nutun. She was educated at the independent Notting Hill
& Ealing High School
in London, and Robinson
College, Cambridge
, where she obtained a 2:1 in
Economics. Huq describes her
religious beliefs as being a "relaxed Muslim".
In 2008, Huq reportedly turned down a six-figure sum to pose naked
for
Playboy magazine; she also
refused to pose topless for
Loaded magazine. This was mentioned
on an episode of
Al Murray's
Happy Hour aired on 21 January 2008.
Career
Early career
In 1989, at the age of 14, Huq was a guest on
Blue Peter
with the
National Youth
Music Theatre, where she sang a solo. In 1992, ahead of the
forthcoming
general election, Huq
interviewed
Labour leader Neil Kinnock for the children's programme
Newsround. She can also be seen
as an extra as a schoolgirl in the
BBC1
sitcom 2point4 Children in the Series 2
episode
"I'm Going Slightly Mad".
In 1997, several months before joining
Blue Peter, Huq
presented
Five's early morning
children's programme
Milkshake!
Blue Peter
At present
Huq is best known for presenting the BBC
children's television programme
Blue
Peter, which she joined on 1 December 1997.
One of her most memorable early moments on
Blue Peter was
visiting Bangladesh, and speaking to members of her extended family
whom she had not seen for many years.
In the programme's
2004 "Summer Expedition" to India
, Huq became
an extra in a Bollywood film, and
practised dancing alongside its stars. For the programme's
2004 "Welcome Home" appeal, she made an emotional visit to Angola
in the hope
of reuniting children with the families they had been separated
from due to war. In 2008, during her last programme, she
broke a
Guinness World
Record by managing to pin 17
Blue Peter Badges onto fellow presenter
Andy Akinwolere's shirt in a minute.
During her time on
Blue Peter her colleagues were
Stuart Miles,
Katy
Hill,
Romana D'Annunzio,
Richard Bacon,
Simon Thomas,
Matt Baker,
Liz Barker,
Zöe Salmon,
Gethin
Jones and
Andy Akinwolere.
In March 2007 she apologised to viewers after a competition on the
programme was faked, saying "We'd like to say sorry to you because
when this mistake happened, we let you down." She was later
reported as saying that this event contributed to her decision to
leave the programme.
On 31 May 2007, Huq announced that she would be leaving
Blue
Peter in early 2008. Her last live programme was broadcast on
22 January 2008, making her the third longest-serving
Blue
Peter presenter of all time and its longest-serving female
host, having passed
Valerie
Singleton's record on 1 October 2007.
On 23 January 2008, Huq hosted her final
Blue Peter, to
celebrate her association with the show she had a Blue Peter badge
tattooed. Producers also showed a
clip
show of her highlights through the ten years she had been on
the programme.
Other television work
Between 2002 and 2004, Huq co-presented the
CBBC Channel's
UK Top 40. More
recently, she made her debut as a news presenter on the
BBC Asian Network, in a series of
documentaries on a new radio current affairs programme called the
Asian
Network Report.
In early 2004 Huq was briefly a presenter for
Top of the Pops. She appeared on the
CBBC series
M.I.High as herself in the episode "The Big
Freeze" broadcast on 22 January 2007. She presented
GMTV's coverage on
New
York Fashion Week on the week of 10 September 2007. She has
also been a guest panelist on the comedy gameshow
8 out of 10 Cats.
December 2007 saw Konnie appear on a celebrity version of
Ready Steady Cook with
Blue Peter co-presenter
Andy
Akinwolere, and playing a servant (called Konnie) on the last
episode of the second series of
Robin
Hood. Also in 2007, Konnie began presenting the
ITV1 London show
London Talking, a
political debate show, alongside
Vanessa
Feltz and
Nick Ferrari.
She has also co-presented some of the weekly
Your News programme for
BBC News in 2008.
On Monday 14 April
2008 Konnie was seen filming at Colchester Zoo
for the 3rd series of Five show Zoo Days which was
broadcast starting June 2008.
She also appeared in an episode of
Charlie Brooker's
Screenwipe in December 2008, where she hosted a mock
version of a "mission documentary". Huq appeared alongside
Charles Kennedy on
This Week on 18 December 2008 and also
appeared in a number of episodes of
M.I.
High.
Now a presenter of
Guinness World Records
Smashed with Steve Jones on Sundays 6pm on Sky1, she has
attempted some records herself including moonwalking and
trampolining. On 15 May 2009, Huq began to present entertainment
show
Hannah-Oke on the Disney Channel
with
Duncan James.
She next appeared as a panellist on popular
Five show
The
Wright Stuff the week beginning 24 August to 28 August
discussing the country's issues.
Comic Relief
In 2005, she took part in BBC One's reality TV show
Comic Relief Does Fame
Academy, in aid of
Comic
Relief, and was the third contestant to be voted off, after her
rendition of
Kim Wilde's
Kids in America. She also
travelled to
Uganda and met orphan children,
on behalf of Comic Relief, and is currently a celebrity ambassador
for the
British Red Cross, for
whom she recorded the video
"If I had HIV, would you kiss
me?" as part of a campaign against stigmatization of people
living with
HIV.
The Tube
On 15 September 2006, Huq became one of the presenters of
The
Tube with
Tony Wilson,
Alex James and
Emily
Rose on
Channel 4 Radio working
with production company UKoneFM. The first edition was broadcast on
3 November 2006.
Personal life
She has been living with TV producer Nick Patterson since 2004.
Previously she dated
Blue Peter colleague
Richard Bacon.
Olympic Torch incident
On 6 April
2008, Huq was one of 80 carriers of the Olympic torch
relay through London when on
Ladbroke
Grove
a protester tried to grab the torch from her whilst
Huq was about to give the torch to the next runner. On
BBC News later that day she defended
carrying the torch, saying she "did the procession because I
believe in the Olympic values, the ideals, I think sport on a
global scale is a brilliant thing, it transcends culture, race,
money," despite what she calls China's "terrible track record when
it comes to human rights." Huq was not hurt in the incident. Police
wrestled the protester to the ground and arrested him. She however
voiced concern over the Chinese torch guards, saying "They were
very robotic, very full on, and actually I noticed them having
skirmishes with our own police and the Olympic authorities before
our leg of the relay".
Filmography
References
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