Comedic Dublin maestro is home in humorous bent

Profession: actor of the never-out-of-work variety. Over a 50-year career he has appeared on stage and screen alongside Charlie Chaplin, Richard Burton, Robert Mitchum, Edith Evans, Sybil Thorndike and Kelsey Grammer (Frasier).

Next gig: tomorrow night the venerable O'Shea makes a rare appearance on an Irish stage when he does a comic turn at the Gaiety in a "cast of thousands" show that also includes whippersnappers such as Dylan Moran and Tommy Tiernan. It's a benefit for Amnesty International.

Good cause: yes, but a social conscience doesn't come cheap these days: tickets for the show are priced £50 and £40. Some are still available from the Gaiety box office on (01) 677-1717.

The clue for 28 across in the New York Times crossword a few years back was "Actor, Milo (5)" and it is a moot point whether having your name in lights on Broadway or being the answer to a crossword clue in a prestigious paper was the biggest thrill for Milo O'Shea.

All the highlights without the lowlights would be a suitable epitaph for the abundantly talented and amiable Dublin actor whose CV could double up, unedited, as a richly entertaining theatrical and cinematic memoir of the last 50 years.

From early Hilton Edwards/ Micheal MacLiammoir productions at the Gate, to starring in Broadway shows, and from Carry On films to a Grammy-nominated role in Frasier, there's not much staged or screened that hasn't featured Milo O'Shea.

With all respect to David Kelly, he remains the best character comedy actor this country has produced. And today he flies from his New York home to pit his wits against the new young upstarts of Irish comedy when he takes to the stage of the Gaiety Theatre tomorrow night for a specially assembled charity show in aid of Amnesty International.

What he will make of the other names on the bill - a raft of young, award-winning local talent including Dylan Moran, Tommy Tiernan and Owen O'Neill whose routines are as earthy and irreverent as they come - remains to be seen (and no doubt heard). But the director of the show, Gerry Stembridge, remains confident the mix will work.

This curious billing reflects the huge success of the Secret Policeman's Balls held in aid of Amnesty by the British comic fraternity where the Beyond The Fringe team would be pitted against the likes of Eddie Izzard in a roller-coaster revue of merriment. Tomorrow night's show, called So You Think You're Irish (the name is gleefully stolen from the Edinburgh Fringe Festival) will be recorded for future video release, and O'Shea will be topping a marathon four-hour bill.

Often heard to complain that he has been typecast as a comedy actor, O'Shea, who was educated in Synge Street school, got his first professional break as a young child courtesy of a Feis Maitiu competition where he won an award for a recitation.

He's not from a luvvie family, although his parents did dabble in various Rathmines and Rathgar Musical Society productions, and he had to convince his parents that the acting life was for him by first doing a fall-back degree in music and drama at the Guildhall School in London.

A regular young actor at the Gate, he diverted down the comedy route with a series of, by all accounts, memorable appearances at the comedy revue shows which used to be held in the Pike Theatre under the auspices of Carolyn Swift and Alan Simpson.

These late-night revues were quick-paced satirical shows where O'Shea honed his comic talent, a skill which helped him in his Carry On roles and more particularly in his appearances in Hugh Leonard's popular television programme, Me Mammy, a sort of Father Ted of its day.

Back on the straight and narrow, his Gate background served him well and he starred in numerous West End successes including the John Gielgud-directed Treasure Hunt (in which he co-starred with Dame Sybil Thorndike), Moliere's School For Scandal and Molnar's The Wolf.

With most of these shows transferring to Broadway, he made more than an impression with local casting agents and has been a resident of New York for the last 25 years. Working on stage alongside the likes of Rex Harrison, Angela Lansbury and Jason Robards, he became one of the first really successful Irish actors in the US, and his stock was further enhanced by two high-profile supporting cinematic roles, in Franco Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet and starring alongside Jane Fonda as a mad scientist in Roger Vadim's Barbarella.

His ability at characterisation, especially of the whimsical and eccentric comedy variety, has kept him gainfully employed on US television over the last few years where cameo roles in The Golden Girls, Cheers and Frasier have drawn rave reviews.

Constant work over the last 50 years enables Milo to live in a penthouse with a roof garden overlooking New York's Central Park, next to the Dakota building, which he shares with his American actress wife, Kitty Sullivan. His first marriage to actress Maureen Toal ended in divorce in 1973.

Appearances in his native Dublin have been rare in the last 25 years (although he did appear in The Sunshine Boys in the Gate two years ago). Even though every theatre management in Ireland has tried to entice him back with various inducements, he loves New York and as a very sought after actor there is kept busy.

On the stage of the Gaiety tomorrow night he'll face an audience a generation or two younger than him, people who probably regard even Ben Elton as "ancient". It'll be an interesting match.