An endearing reimagining of a classic, Scottish Theatre Producers’ take on Treasure Island celebrates the art of storytelling and explores the nature of courage. In this reverent but truncated version, the book becomes a story within a story, as anxious young Robbie Stevenson escapes into its pages, keen to blot out the memory of a humiliating school singing recital. Identifying with frightened Jim Hawkins, the cabin boy caught between the lawless lure of pirating and the sometimes inflexible rules of conventional morality, Robbie makes a leap of empathy with Hawkins’ death-defying exploits, appreciating that the bravest aren’t always the most fearless.

By emphasising Robbie’s investment in Jim, Ross MacKay’s script highlights the heroic self-agency of the boys in confronting their anxieties. As both Jim and Robbie (his bedroom transforming into the Admiral Benbow Inn, the Hispaniola and Treasure Island itself, its flexible, IKEA-like arrangement facilitating sails, palm trees and the like), Anthony O’Neil is believably troubled and defensive, belatedly finding himself when backed into a corner. As Long John Silver, meanwhile, Simon Donaldson capably captures the villain’s seductive charm for a gauche adolescent, even as he ultimately descends into blood-soaked infamy. Megan McGuire and Stephanie MacGaraidh share equal billing with them, playing multiple roles.

Incorporating shadow puppetry and several thigh-slapping sea shanties, Jordan Blackwood’s steady direction sagely allows Robert Louis Stevenson’s page-turner to mostly speak for itself, though the correspondence with Robbie in the present day is smooth and the piece pulls off its tacit aim of making the story sing to a modern young audience. Ben Gunn’s cheese obsession inspires a song that doesn’t quite spark as a comic interlude. Yet it’s a rare misstep for a lively and compelling production that dispenses with eye patches and peg legs but is surefootedly swashbuckling all the same.

Treasure Island, touring across Scotland until Saturday 19 October; reviewed at Eastwood Park Theatre, Giffnock.