Even if they’ve never read the book or seen the Disney film, most people will know one fact about Pinocchio – his nose grew when he told a lie.

This touring production by Scamp Theatre and Indefinite Articles throws that away to reveal some of the other stories about the puppet who wanted to be a real boy, as collected in Italian writer Carlo Collodi’s original book.

“Disney really brought out the nose element of it,” says Steve Tiplady, who takes the role of lonely carpenter Geppetto to tell the story in his workshop using the tools around him.

“His nose does grow in the book, but it doesn’t happen very much. This is not the Disney version where it grows every time he tells a lie – Disney had a very different agenda, as did Collodi, and I have made my own one too. I’m not anti-Disney but I’m working against it slightly.”

Tiplady’s Pinocchio is very much an innocent who encounters different characters and is led astray.

“There’s a purity about him,” says Tiplady, who adds Pinocchio’s irritating little conscience Jiminy Cricket also doesn’t play much of a role here.

“In the book he’s a nasty character, who Pinocchio kills straight away,” says Tiplady.

“I thought it would be a nice spin to use that aspect of it – so what happens to him in the book happens to him in the show, rather than him being a constant character.

“I don’t have enough hands for him...”

The origins of Tiplady’s take on Pinocchio date back 22 years to when he first became a father.

“I thought about the notion of being a father and the relationship you have with your son as he’s growing up,” he says. “That was really the starting point for me.”

The younger audience comes at the story from another angle.

“It’s about what it’s like to do these really brave things, such as going to school for the first time,” says Tiplady.

“It’s about meeting different characters and whether or not you should trust them. There’s lots in the story that young people can associate with.”

Pinocchio is created live onstage in Geppetto’s workshop, using a carved head and a variety of other objects.

Similarly, all the characters Pinocchio meets are constructed from tools lying around – with a set of brushes used to take the place of the fox and two saws to represent a shark.

“I am a big fan of object theatre,” says Tiplady. “It’s a form of puppetry or theatre that has an integrity about what you use on stage. There’s a reality about it, using objects to tell stories or become puppets or characters within the show.”

Accompanying Tiplady onstage is a live musician, who will be sound-tracking the performance.

And the other element of the tale comes from the audience itself.

“Every show is different,” says Tiplady. “I ask for a lot of responses from the audience and try to take them into the show. If someone shouts something out I will answer back.

“There’s no set script as such – I have never written the whole show down. I know what happens and the order it happens in, but beyond that I like to keep it loose.

“One of the benefits of doing a show 750 times is that it becomes a fun thing and I can afford to be that loose.

“I have done this show every year since I made it – I try to do 50 shows a year to keep me going.”

Tiplady runs theatre company Indefinite Articles with Sally Todd. The pair have developed other storytelling shows based around classics, such as a shadow puppet version of Aladdin, and are developing a new take on the Theseus and the Minotaur story called Bullseye.

Building on the interaction within Pinocchio, they have also developed a storytelling event called Claytime, encouraging the audience of three to six-year-olds to use clay to improvise a story.

Tiplady believes it is the simplicity of the Pinocchio production which keeps people coming back to it.

“It’s a very different experience,” he says. “It’s a very intimate little show.

“Often puppet shows feel so beautifully crafted they can put an audience in a position where they think they could never do it.

“I’m aiming to do something that kids could look at and think ‘I could do that’ but still be amazed.”