Konnie Huq
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Konnie Huq (Bengali: কনি হক), (born 17 July 1975), is a British television presenter.
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[edit] Biography
Huq's (pronounced Huck) parents moved to England from Bangladesh in the 1960s, and she was born and grew up in Ealing, London, with her two sisters, Rupa and Nutun. She was educated at Notting Hill and Ealing High School in London, and Robinson College, Cambridge, where she obtained a 2:1 in Economics.
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 upcoming General Election, Huq interviewed Neil Kinnock for the children's programme Newsround.
In 1997, several months prior to joining Blue Peter, Huq presented Five's early morning children's programme Milkshake!
[edit] Blue Peter
Huq currently presents the BBC One children's television show Blue Peter and became its first Asian presenter when she joined on 1 December 1997. (At the time, Huq was regarded as being its 25th presenter, but the subsequent acknowledgment of Anita West as a former presenter, in 1998, means Huq is now the programme's 26th host.) She is currently the fourth longest running Blue Peter presenter of all time and its second longest-running female host after Valerie Singleton.
One of Huq's most memorable early moments on Blue Peter was going to Bangladesh, and visiting members of her extended family whom she hadn't seen in a long time. In the show's 2004 'Summer Expedition' to India, Konnie 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 on behalf of Blue Peter, in the hope of reuniting children with the families they had been separated from due to war.
Huq briefly co-presented Blue Peter with former boyfriend Richard Bacon, and remained his girlfriend after he was sacked from the show in mid-contract; in August 2006, he announced publicly that the relationship was over.
She has presented with Stuart Miles, Katy Hill, Romana D'Annunzio, Richard Bacon, Simon Thomas, Matt Baker, Liz Barker, Zoe Salmon, Gethin Jones and Andy Akinwolere. If she is still presenting the show at the end of 2007, she will have been the first Blue Peter presenter to have worked on the programme for an entire decade since Peter Purves and will have overtaken the legendary Valerie Singleton as longest running female host.
[edit] 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. She appeared on the CBBC series M.I.High as herself in the episode "The Big Freeze" broadcast on 22 January 2007. Huq has also been rumoured to present the fourth series of hit reality TV show The X Factor, but nothing as yet has been confirmed by television channel ITV.
[edit] Comic Relief
In 2005, she took part in BBC1'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.
[edit] The Tube
On 15 September 2006 Huq became one of the presenters of The Tube on Channel Four Radio working with production company UKoneFM. The first show was broadcast on 3 November[1]
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- Konnie Huq's Blue Peter video blog
- Konnie Huq at the Internet Movie Database
- Unofficial site on Konnie Huq
- Asians in Media article on new Asian Network Report
- The Tube - Channel 4 Radio
| Preceded by Romana D'Annunzio |
Blue Peter Presenter No. 26 1997- |
Succeeded by - |
