Konnie Huq is a British television and radio presenter, screenwriter, and children’s author. She was the longest-serving female presenter of the British children’s television program Blue Peter, presenting it from 1997 to 2008. She has been a presenter and guest on shows including the 2010 series of The Xtra Factor on ITV2.
Is Konnie Huq related to Rupa Huq?
Konnie Asha Huq was born in the Hammersmith district of London on 17 July 1975, to Muslim parents who emigrated from Bangladesh in the 1960s. She grew up in the Ealing district of London with her two elder sisters, Nutun and future Labour Party politician Rupa.
Education
She went to Notting Hill & Ealing High School, from where she acquired nine GCSEs. Later on, she attained A-levels in chemistry, mathematics, and physics. Afterward, she proceeded to Robinson College, Cambridge, to study economics; she graduated with a 2:1 degree.
Early Work
She also learned part-time at the National Youth Music Theatre. At age 14, she was part of the program Blue Peter in 1989, where she sang a solo for them. In the following year, she was with Jude Law for the production by the National Youth Music Theatre, which was Captain Stirrick.
Her first presenting appearance was at the age of 16 on the satellite television show TVFM. She presented a GMTV Saturday morning children’s quiz show called Eat Your Words between 1994 and 1996.[13] She was supported by Mark Speight before Simon Parkin took over. In 1997, three months before joining Blue Peter, Huq presented Channel Five’s early morning children’s program Milkshake!
Who is the longest-serving female presenter of Blue Peter?
Huq co-presented the BBC children’s television programme Blue Peter, from 1 December 1997. Early in her tenure as a presenter, she visited the Bangladeshi village where earlier generations of her family had lived. For the program’s 2004 Summer Expedition to India, Huq was an extra in the Bollywood film Musafir (2004) and danced alongside its stars.[17][18] For the program’s 2004 Welcome Home appeal, she visited Angola, hoping to reunite children and their families who had been separated due to war.
She is the third longest-serving Blue Peter presenter and its longest-serving female host, having surpassed Valerie Singleton’s record on 1 October 2007. She holds the record of 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.
Konnie Huq: A Multifaceted TV Career from Chart Shows to Theatre Streaming
Between 2002 and 2004, Huq co-presented the CBBC Channel’s UK Top 40 chart show, and in early 2003 she was briefly a presenter for Top of the Pops. She presented GMTV’s LK Today coverage of New York Fashion Week on the week of 10 September 2007.[26] In June 2007 she was a guest panellist on the comedy gameshow 8 out of 10 Cats.[27]
In December 2007, Huq appeared on a celebrity version of Ready Steady Cook with Blue Peter co-presenter Andy Akinwolere. In 2007, she started co-presenting the ITV1 London political debate show London Talking with Vanessa Feltz and Nick Ferrari and also presented some of the weekly Your News programs for BBC News in 2008
In February 2011, Huq appeared in the ITV2 documentary series Under Pressure, in which she attempted to become a rapper. Trailers for the show asked, “Will Konnie Huq it up? ” She was coached by Akala and appeared at indigO2.
She presented the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Live from Stratford upon Avon, a web initiative to bring theatrical performances to the school, for two consecutive years. In July 2012, the project web-streamed a performance of I, Cinna (The Poet), a play by Tim Crouch about the poet in Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar killed by a mob after being mistaken for a conspirator
Most Popular TV Shows
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- Blue Peter
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- Xchange
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- UK Top 40
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- The One Show
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- King of the Nerds UK
Radio
Huq presented The Tube with Tony Wilson, Alex James, and Emily Rose on Channel 4 Radio on 15 September 2006, working for UKoneFM as the production company. The initial series was aired on 3 November 2006. Huq presented news for the BBC Asian Network since September 2007 as a part of a series of documentaries on a radio current affairs program called the Asian Network Report. In 2010, she hosted an episode of Archive on 4, critiquing forty years of Sesame Street.[44] In 2013, she was featured in the Radio 4 biographical series Great Lives, where subjects choose someone who inspires them and chose Ada Lovelace.
Screenwriting and Conventions
In December 2009, Huq won the Best Rising Star Screenplay Angel award at the Monaco International Film Festival for her screenplay Ahmed and Mildred, a story described as “a superhero-themed journey into the imagination of two young infants as they experience love at first sight.” In March 2014, Ahmed and Mildred was selected as one of the projects to receive funding from Film London to enable production to take place.
Children’s Books
Her children’s book Cookie and the Most Annoying Boy in the World was released in 2019 and is the first book of a trilogy planned to run to three volumes. The book tells the story of fictional school pupil Cookie Haque, who is keen on learning science, and how her best friend leaves town and what happens when she meets her new nemesis: the most annoying boy in the world. Huq both penned and illustrated the book. Cookie has been described by Huq as “a cross between Wimpy Kid and Bridget Jones.” As of May 2020, the next book in the series, with a theme of climate change, was due to be published in August 2020.
Is Konnie Huq still married?
On 26 July 2010, Huq married writer and satirist Charlie Brooker at the Little White Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas after a nine-month relationship. They have two sons. Huq has said she reduced her television commitments so that she could focus on her children.