Konnie Huq

In 2019 Huq appeared in Good Omens written by Neil Gaiman and the late Terry Pratchett.

On 29 June 2016, Huq hosted VOOM 2016 for Virgin Media Business’.

On 14 October 2014, Huq was one of the speakers celebrating Ada Lovelace Day at the Royal Institution.

For two consecutive years Huq presented the Royal Shakespeare Company's Live from Stratford upon Avon, a web project aimed at showing theatre productions in schools. In July 2012 the project web-streamed a performance of I Cinna (The Poet). In November 2013 a recording of the Globe Theatre production of Richard II was shown in 3,000 schools. The performances were followed by a question-and-answer session hosted by Huq.

In February 2011 she appeared in an episode of the ITV2 documentary programme Under Pressure, where she attempted to learn how to be a rapper. Trailers for the show asked "Will Konnie Huq it up?"

Huq supported the Labour Party at the 2010 General Election. Her sister, Rupa Huq, was elected as the Labour MP for Ealing Central and Acton at the 2015 general election.

On 26 July 2010, Huq married the writer and satirist Charlie Brooker at the Little White Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas after a nine-month relationship. They have two sons. She has spoken candidly about juggling her career with motherhood, saying that she took a step back from TV so that she could focus on her children.

She also played herself in the episode "Golden Lady" of the TV series FM in March 2009.

She presented Guinness World Records Smashed with Steve Jones on Sundays at 6:00 pm 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.

In December 2009 Huq won the Best Rising Star Screenplay Angel award at the Monaco International Film Festival for the short story Ahmed and Mildred. In March 2014 Ahmed and Mildred was selected to receive funding from Film London.

She has also co-presented some of the weekly Your News programme for BBC News in 2008. On 14 April 2008 Konnie was seen filming at Colchester Zoo for the third series of Channel Five show Zoo Days which was broadcast from June 2008. Also in 2008, Huq presented The Red Bull Air Race with Dougie Anderson for Channel 4.

Huq appeared with her future husband Charlie Brooker in his satirical review programme Screenwipe in December 2008 on BBC Four. Here, she hosted a mock version of a "mission documentary" entitled Konnie's Great British Wee, in which she claimed to be on a mission to combat paruresis in males. Huq appeared alongside Charles Kennedy on This Week on 18 December 2008. She appeared on the CBBC series M.I.High as herself in the episode "The Big Freeze" broadcast on 22 January 2007.

On 6 April 2008, Huq participated in the London leg of the 2008 Summer Olympics torch relay on its journey to Beijing, China, as one of eighty torch carriers. In Ladbroke Grove a protester tried to grab the torch from Huq as she was about to give the torch to the next runner. 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".

In 2008 Huq travelled to Afghanistan with the charity Afghanaid to film a BBC Lifelines appeal, which was aired on 21 September. Huq was an ambassador for Gold Challenge, part of the official mass participation legacy programme for the London 2012 Olympic Games.

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 later said that this event contributed to her decision to leave the programme.

On 31 May 2007, Huq announced that she would be leaving Blue Peter. On 22 January 2008, Huq hosted her final Blue Peter, with a clip show of her highlights through the ten years she had been on the programme. 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.

In early 2003 Huq 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. In June 2007 she was a guest panellist on the comedy gameshow 8 out of 10 Cats.

In December 2007 Huq appeared on a celebrity version of Ready Steady Cook with Blue Peter co-presenter Andy Akinwolere, and played a servant (also called Konnie, last name unknown) on the last episode of the second series of Robin Hood. Also in 2007, she began presenting the ITV1 London show London Talking, a political debate show, alongside Vanessa Feltz and Nick Ferrari.

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. Huq made her debut as a news presenter on the BBC Asian Network in September 2007, in a series of documentaries on a radio current affairs programme called the Asian Network Report. In 2013, she took part in the Radio 4 series Great Lives, nominating Ada Lovelace.

In 2005, Huq took part in BBC One show Comic Relief Does Fame Academy. She 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.

Between 2002 and 2004, Huq co-presented the CBBC Channel's UK Top 40.

Huq presented the BBC children's television programme Blue Peter, starting on 1 December 1997. Early in her term as a presenter, she visited Bangladesh, 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 the Bollywood film Musafir (2004), and practised dancing alongside its stars. For the programme's 2004 "Welcome Home" appeal, she visited Angola, hoping to reunite children with their families (from which both had been separated due to war). 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.

Huq's presenting debut was in a GMTV Saturday morning children's quiz show entitled "Eat Your Words" between 1994 and 1996. 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!, while also working as an editorial assistant for the now defunct Total Sport magazine.

In 1989, at the age of 14, Huq was a guest on Blue Peter with the National Youth Music Theatre, when she sang a solo. Before the 1992 general election, Huq interviewed Labour leader Neil Kinnock for the children's programme Newsround. She appeared as a contestant on Blockbusters in the same year. She also appeared as an uncredited extra playing a schoolgirl in the BBC1 sitcom 2point4 Children in the Series 2 episode "I'm Going Slightly Mad".

Kanak Asha "Konnie" Huq (/ˈ h ʌ k / ; born 17 July 1975) is a British television presenter and writer. She is the longest-serving female presenter of Blue Peter, having presented it from 1 December 1997 until 23 January 2008. She presented the 2010 series of The Xtra Factor on ITV2.

Huq was born in Hammersmith, west London, to Muslim Bangladeshi parents who had emigrated to England in the 1960s. She grew up in Ealing, west London, with her two elder sisters, Rupa and Nutun. She was educated at Notting Hill & Ealing High School in London and left school with nine GCSEs and A-levels in physics, mathematics and chemistry. Huq studied sciences for her A-Levels; however, she chose to study economics at Robinson College, Cambridge, and graduated from the University of Cambridge with a 2:1 degree.