WRITING another play about our most celebrated bushranger might not seem high on the list of theatrical priorities these days, but it was for Matthew Ryan, the prizewinning Queensland playwright who has, in his play “Kelly”, put a new face to the relationship of brothers Ned and Dan.

Dan Kelly? Wasn’t he burnt to death in the siege at Glenrowan in June, 1880, before the armour-clad Ned was arrested and carted off to Pentridge? Well, maybe not, for (as with Elvis) sightings of Dan went on for years after Glenrowan and, indeed, his remains were never properly identified.

Ryan turns us, the audience, into the flies on the wall when, on the eve of Ned’s execution, the disguised Dan turns up within the walls of Old Melbourne Gaol to beg for a blessing from his big brother.

It’s one of those Elvis-meets-Marilyn moments that never happened, but the resulting play has been a hit for the Queensland Theatre Company and its director Wesley Enoch.

Ryan has nurtured an interest in Kelly for a long time. He lived in Shepparton as a kid, close to Kelly country, where young children were exposed to “grotesque and gruesome” pictures about the shooting in nearby Glenrowan.

“These figures permeate you, you become aware of what they mean to you,” he says.

He was taken to Glenrowan and Old Melbourne Gaol, finding both “very spooky” and it is that which has stayed with him, not the broader picture.

“I had a desire to find Ned Kelly as I experienced him rather than as a nationalistic figure.”

Years later when writing a work about two brothers in a jail cell it hit him that the Kelly brothers would make very good characters for a play and “Kelly” was born.

“My idea was to look at Kelly, the man,” he says.

Ryan has read a lot of Kelly literature and soon discovered that Dan was always getting into situations that Big Brother Ned strove to get him out of, and he resented it bitterly.

Take the massacre at Stringybark Creek. Ned was making an early exit when he realised Dan was in danger and returned to become the country’s most wanted man.

At Glenrowan. Ned was seen in his armour coming back to rescue Dan, who turned on him. Ryan shows him coming to the prison to beg for forgiveness. There’s the drama – while the bond between the two brothers was strong – Dan wanted freedom from Ned, as the confrontation in the play shows.

Although there is a prison guard who also plays flashback characters, “Kelly” is a two-hander, largely an encounter between two brothers. Ned had a way with words and Ryan exploits that to the hilt, avoiding Australian colloquialism in a nod to the outlaw’s Irish heritage.

“Most of the time the battle is in the words as they go hell for leather at each other,” he says.

“The use of language amongst the Irish is quite different, it’s filled with joy… our Australian vernacular is a bit repetitious, so it’s really a shame not to do the Irish language.”

“Kelly”, The Playhouse, June 24-27, bookings to canberratheatrecentre.com.au or 6275 2700.