He is the co-founder of Sarvashubhamkara, a charity that provides medical care, education and human contact to socially excluded individuals and communities on the Indian subcontinent, most of whom are affected by the stigma of leprosy.

His designs included Matthew Bourne's Infernal Galop (1989; revived 1992), Deadly Serious (1992), The Percys of Fitzrovia (1992) and Drip: a Narcissistic Love Story (BBC's Dance for the Camera, 1993).

Manners spent 2011 in collaboration with Jerwood Award-winning choreographer and director Ben Wright,[13] creating text to inspire a new work for the dance company bgroup, which was taken on a national tour in the UK.

[22] Here at Last is Love is based on personal interviews and unpublished letters written by members of the Pink Sink set – a group of gay army officers and M.I.5 agents, who met at the lower bar at London's Ritz Hotel during the Blitz.

These men included Terence Rattigan, Desmond Carrington, Paul Dehn, Dunstan Thompson and Michael Pitt-Rivers, all of whom gathered around a socially-ostracised, single mother affectionately known as Sodomy Johnson, 'the Buggers' Vera Lynn'.

[24] Manners' stage play Picture Perfect is based on the life of his relation Margaret Chute, Hollywood's first freelance film journalist and photographer.