Playwright Simon Stephens says actors are being creatively "stifled" and are reluctant to take risks because short-term contracts for a single play mean they are always wondering where the next job is coming from. In a conference speech reported in the Stage, Stephens said: "They would have one eye on the director, to make sure they don't offend them, one eye on the writer, to make sure they seduce and tantalise them so they maybe might want to write something for them, and one eye on the artistic director to let them know they are not a difficult person to have around the theatre."

I'm a big admirer of Stephens, but I'm not entirely convinced by this argument. For one thing, I'm constantly impressed by the brave and creative performances I see actors delivering everywhere from the RSC to the tiniest fringe venue. For most actors, the kind of precariousness that Stephens is talking about is as much fact of professional life as it is for those working freelance in any profession, whether they are actors, journalists or accountants (although an overly creative accountant might not be such a good thing), or indeed playwrights or directors. Presumably if actors are creatively stifled and have one eye on pleasing the artistic director and director, so too do writers keen on the next commission.

If he really thinks job security encourages risk, perhaps Stephens should watch a wet Wednesday matinee of a show that is halfway through a six-month tour to Number One houses. But I guess he's thinking more about the ensemble model, which is being used by the Lyric for its Secret Theatre season, for which Stephens is the dramaturg. In an age when many actors want to work in film and TV as well as on stage, the ensemble model is a luxury some can't afford, and many agents certainly don't encourage.

But is it always better anyway? Unlike Europe, the UK has never really adopted the ensemble model, which has thrived on the continent, in particular in eastern bloc countries before the wall came down, when labour was cheap. We, of course, had the old repertory model, where a group of actors came together to work on a season of plays, but that has long disappeared, which concerns some.

I never really saw the rep model operating, but I do know that seeing an ensemble or company of actors working together over a long period can be thrilling, as the RSC's History Cycle proved. Alan Lyddiard's Northern Stage company at Newcastle in the 1990s was risky and surprising, and back in the 80s it was a joy to watch actors at the RSC, such as Juliet Stevenson, Fiona Shaw and Simon Russell Beale, playing several roles over a number of seasons. One of the pleasures of watching Forced Entertainment is watching performers mature and age over a long period. But I've also seen tired ensembles from abroad where there is plenty of long-term job security but actors stagnate after playing the same role in the same play over many years.

Increasingly, what we see is actors and theatremakers forming companies with whom they create work over a period of time, sometimes years, while also pursuing concurrent individual careers. Often in those companies, actors have a real creative input in a way that seldom happens in traditional theatre set-ups. That offers the best of both worlds. But I'd argue that no one ever became an actor expecting long-term job security, and while the freelance way of life does not suit anyone, uncertainty can be a genuine spur to creativity, rather than stifling risk.