 Though an accomplished dramatic actor, he is often remembered for his comically sinister performances.After a series of false starts, including a spell as a jobbing labourer and another as a clerk in a local government office, Sim's love of and talent for poetry reading won him several prizes and led to his appointment as a lecturer in elocution at the University of Edinburgh in 1925.He also ran his own private elocution and drama school, from which, with the help of the playwright John Drinkwater, he made the transition to the professional stage in 1930.