premiered his black comedy Garage, at the Director's Fortnight last night.

Garage's secret weapon is a star who artistic director Olivier Pere predicts will be "the great discovery of the international audience at the Fortnight this year" . . . none other than Pat Shortt, hot from shooting a fourth series of Kilnaskully on location in Tipperary.

Abrahamson and writer Mark O'Halloran, following their collaboration on the European awardwinning Adam & Paul wrote the part of the harmless local misfit Josie specifically for Shortt.

"I'd worked with Lenny years ago on a commercial, " says Shortt. "I think they had me in mind from the point of view of the physical performance of the character and I suppose the comedy elements as well."

Right from his debut short Eh Joe in 1990, Abrahamson has shown a talent for silent comedy.

"He's not afraid of space and very little being said, " says Shortt. "He leaves a lot to the visuals, whereas all too often comedy is driven by dialogue."

Garage is quite a leap from the cartoonish Killinaskully. "I suppose for me to get away from that by playing a character and playing him a lot more real was a challenge, " says Shortt. "It fits in quite well with Killinaskully in some respects. I think every small community has a character like him. People often say that a character like him would be lost in the city. He's a bit simple but he tends to be looked after by people in the area. He grew up there and his whole life is based around the town. He lives for the town and the town means so much to him whereas everyone else is despondent about the place."

Shortt, who grew up in Limerick, dropped out of art college in his first year when he met Jon Kenny and began touring pubs as D'Unbelievables, as well as playing jazz with different bands and touring with the Saw Doctors. D'Unbelievables are now seen as one of the great Irish comedy acts. "I suppose we were in that era when the stand-up thing was starting to take-off, " he says. "And then Father Ted happened and we were a part of that. Suddenly a lot of Irish comedy acts were getting on the BBC and Channel 4 and then people started turning out to see it."

Killinaskully plays to audiences of up to 600,000.

Now Cannes beckons. "To be honest I know very little about it, " he says. "I was talking to James Hickey and he told me it was very prestigious. So excuse my ignorance."