Ned Manning

Ned’s plays have been produced in Australia and overseas. His plays are performed and studied in schools throughout Australia.

Ned was the first Australian playwright to write about the Stolen Generation when he wrote Close to the Bone with his students at the Eora Centre for Aboriginal Visual and Performing Arts in Redfern. Close to the Bone toured NSW and has had a number of productions throughout the country. His follow up play on the same subject, Luck of the Draw, was the first play written by a white writer to be produced by Queensland’s Indigenous theatre company, Kooemba Jdaraa.

As an actor, Ned has appeared in some of Australia’s most loved film, television and theatre productions including: Looking for Alibrandi, Offspring, The Shiralee, Bodyline, Aftershocks, The Sullivans, Home and Away and Neighbours. He played the lead role in the 1980’s cult classic, Dead End Drive-In.

His most recent performance was in the Foxtel series Mr Inbetween in 2021.

Recent articles by Ned Manning

Young people no longer see Labor as the party of protest

Young people no longer see Labor as the party of protest

The response to a piece I wrote for the SMH/Age recently has been very interesting in a number of ways. It has also been very revealing. I have been called a “dog”, been accused of rewriting history and of “letting the side down. Every one of the responses had ignored the basic premise of my article. I wrote about the generational change in my family and my friend’s families that has seen young people abandon Labor and turn to the Greens in frustration. It’s not that they are necessarily attracted to the Greens; it is that, for young people, there...

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