 Alongside David Yip, Pik-Sen Lim was probably the most familiar Chinese actor
on British television screens in the 1970s and 80s. Born in Penang, Malaya, but
of Chinese ethnicity, she arrived in Britain as a teenager at the turn of the
1960s, and began acting shortly after. In early 1964 she was in the cast of
Bernard Miles' Mermaid Theatre production of Euripedes' The Bacchae, before a two-year stint as
Nurse Kwei on Emergency-Ward 10 (ITV, 1957-67), during which she met her
husband, writer Don Houghton. She later appeared in Houghton's historical
children's adventure series, The Flaxton Boys (ITV, 1969-73), and in his
six-part 'The Mind of Evil' (1971) for Doctor Who (BBC, 1962-89; 2005-).
Although much or most of her career has seen her in straight roles on both
big and small screens - including work with Peter Watkins (Gladiotarena, Sweden,
1969), Bette Davis (Madame Sin, d. David Greene, 1972) and Dennis Potter (Cream
in My Coffee, ITV, tx. 2/11/1980) - her best-known work has been in TV comedy.
She was one of three young beauties improbably chasing anxious bachelor Derek
Nimmo in the BBC sitcom Sorry I'm Single (1967), but probably (and regrettably)
her best-remembered role was as the little-red-book-hugging Chinese Communist
Party stalwart Su-Lee, inexplicably attending an English language evening class
in the parade of national stereotypes that was Mind Your Language (ITV,
1978-79).
Parts for Chinese actresses on British TV have never been plentiful, but she
has kept busy. A regular on the short-lived BBC2 soap Albion Market (1985-86),
in the 1980s she made guest appearances on the likes of Shoestring (BBC,
1979-80), The Professionals (ITV, 1978-93), and appeared in the David
Hare-scripted Plenty (US, 1985). More recently she has turned up in the feature-
length Cracker story White Ghost (ITV, tx 28/10/1997), episodes of The Bill
(ITV, 1984-) and Little Britain (BBC,
2003-04) and in the FilmFour comedy feature Miranda (d. Mark Munden, 2002). Her daughter, Sarah Houghton, is also an increasingly successful
actress.
Mark Duguid
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FILM & TV CREDITS
