What risks do playwrights take when they create experimental drama? What risks might the audience take when they attend an experimental drama?

When the playwright Simon Stephens complained that the recession had made theatre audiences more conservative, it could have been dismissed as sour grapes. The Olivier award-winner's latest play, The Trial of Ubu, had opened to mixed reviews and proved a commercial flop, playing on one snowy Saturday night to just 54 people in a 277-seat auditorium at London's Hampstead theatre.

Now, however, two of the UK's leading playwrights, Sir David Hare and Mark Ravenhill, have expressed disquiet that subsidised theatres are avoiding challenging or experimental work in favour of more familiar or feelgood fare.

Hare said many venues that once housed less commercial work were becoming increasingly mainstream, because of a desire to make up the shortfall caused by cuts to their funding.