A little piece of Japan is being created in a corner of an East Oxford primary school. No, it’s not a new approach to school dinners, it’s Oxfordshire Theatre Company and Pegasus Theatre’s co-production of Peach Boy: The Adventures of Momotaro.

The story of Peach Boy begins with an old washerwoman going down to the riverbank. There she retrieves a giant peach from the water, and is shocked to discover a baby boy hidden inside. The boy, named Momotaro, turns out to possess superhuman powers. His destiny is to save his village from dastardly demons and assorted monsters.

“I’d picked up on the story of Momotaro before Christmas last year, and knew it was a really good Japanese story,” director Karen Simpson explained. “So I thought it would be really nice to work with Japanese artists if at all possible.”

But how to find that Japanese input here in Oxfordshire? Time for Karen to go searching on the Internet.

“When I found Togo Igawa on Google, with an address just outside Banbury, I could hardly believe my luck, especially when I discovered how much experience he has. I’d had the good fortune to go to Japan in the summer, and had been there before, but it’s very different from actually coming from that culture.”

Togo Igawa has lived in Oxfordshire since 1983, and to date has appeared in no fewer than 72 films across the world. His most recent expedition abroad involved a spell in France, filming the third largest part in Le Hérisson (The Hedgehog).

“My English is awful, but better than my French. I had to learn the dialogue phonetically,” Togo explained with typically modest charm –— not for nothing was his performance in Le Hérisson described by reviewers as: “unfailingly gracious”.

He began his career in his native Japan, where an actor’s circumstances can be very different from those in the west.

“I belonged to a tent theatre — we had an enormous tent, seating 500 people. We travelled all over Japan, to 100 cities or more. We were not allowed to act outside the company, it was like an army in a way. For 15 years I was with the same company. It would be out of the question in Britain.”

Now, Togo is bringing all his experience to bear on Peach Boy, as he joins the production as movement director.

“Not only performance but actual lifestyle is different: for instance, the way of walking and greeting people. But, of course, we are the same human beings, so you can’t say which is right and which is wrong. Karen wants to introduce Japanese-ness, so that’s why I was called in.

“Even Japanese actors and dancers have to be trained for ages, although they come from a Japanese background. For instance, when I was little, if I grabbed a stick, I could become a Samurai warrior almost immediately. But if you give a stick to an English actor, he won’t become Samurai, you have to teach him how to use a sword, or make the sword a part of his body.

“So I’m showing the actors how to interpret the Japanese way of life.”

Togo has known the story of Peach Boy since childhood — it’s as familiar in Japan as Cinderella is in this country.

“The original Momotaro story comes from the beginning of the 15th century. The story has a very strong moral to it — that heroes should behave this way, and society should be that way. Unfortunately, it was used during the Second World War by the Japanese Army for propaganda purposes.

“But the original tale isn’t like that, it’s much more of an adventure story. I was actually not brought up in a very militaristic or patriotic way, having been born after the war.

“But I was told this story; I love this kind of fairytale.”

I wondered whether director Karen Simpson had left the story in its 15th-century setting, or brought it up to date.

“We’ve kept the old quality of it. From the dramatic point of view it’s interesting for an audience to be transported to a different world, and a different time. We’ve made choices about what we use from Japanese culture, and what we don’t: the show must be accessible to any child or adult who comes along to a performance here in Oxfordshire.”

Or as Togo Igawa put it: “We are making our own Momotaro here in Oxfordshire.”

lPeach Boy: The Adventures of Momotaro runs at the OFS Studio, Oxford, from November 5 to 7 (tickets 0844 8440 662). It will then play across Oxfordshire. Full details on oxfordshiretheatre company.co.uk