LAST time Phil Cool was on North Devon shores he managed to twist and turn his features into everything and everybody from the President of the United States to Bugs Bunny. For those of you who don't know about Mr Rubber Face, Phil has this rare and rather weird ability to manipulate his visage into everything from the pope to a surreal intergalactic alien.

However, the next time we're likely to see Phil performing at a North Devon theatre, he'll be demonstrating a very different set of talents. Along with guitar whizz Ken Nicol, of Steeleye Span fame, he'll sing self-penned songs as the support act to folk stalwarts, Fairport Convention.

Simon Nicol, from Fairport, said: "We always have an interesting opening act. It's always been a tradition for us to get someone a little bit quirky and unusual."

By quirky does he mean having a face and body that seem to defy anatomical laws?

"Well Phil has re-invented himself from the TV comic we remember from 20 years ago," he asserted. "He has become a really good songwriter now and, in partnership with Ken Nicol, they've got themselves an interesting little duo."

Should we expect Phil Cool without the laughs then?

Simon's not going that far: "He's bad to the bone. You can't keep the old man down. The music, though, is something unexpected. Their recordings are quite impressive."

Fairport Convention, a band who have been toiling in the folk rock field for more than 40 years, visit the Landmark at the beginning of February.

"It'll not just be the old familiar chestnuts on the night," founder member Simon promised. "There's a mixture of some unfamiliar old chestnuts, (trips back into past areas which have been overlooked for many decades), and some brand new stuff."

Simon has been with the band, (which incidentally got its name from his family home, Fairport), since its beginning – an impressive 43 years ago.

"It is my life. It is as much my life as both my birth and marital family are," he declared. "You can't separate me from them. It's a wonderful thing and I really do appreciate the contact we have with the people who make it possible."

These are the thousands of folk fans who go to Fairport's Cropredy Convention (a three-day music festival that takes place in Oxfordshire) or turn out on a winter's night to see their gigs.

"We always want to send them away feeling happy they bought that ticket," said Simon.

There's no mystique or cult around this easygoing bunch of musicians made up of Simon Nicol (rhythm guitar and lead vocal), Chris Leslie (lead vocal, fiddle, mandolin), Ric Sanders (violin), Dave Pegg (bass guitar) and Gerry Conway (drums, percussion). You could say they thrive on feedback from their audience. Simon laughed about being in a pub next to a theatre they were about to play and someone saying: "Don't you think it's about time you should drop that song? You've been doing it for three years running."

"People do feel able to talk to us as equals," he said. "It's something to be proud of."

This casual interaction is also fostered at their three day music festival, the Cropredy Convention, which this year runs from August 13 to August 15.

"We do generate a gentle family atmosphere," said Simon.

There's no back stage bar or VIP area at the festival which attracts up to 20,000 people.

"Everyone who plays there and wants a drink has to go out to the bar and stand there with everyone else. That is a tradition now and everyone respects it. Even huge stars like Robert Plant can come to the festival and people won't pester him for autographs. It's a unique experience for him and he really enjoys it. If he goes anywhere else he's got to have blacked out windows on the limo. It's crazy."

While Simon admitted Fairport's core fan base is their contemporaries, many younger people have discovered their music too.

"It is a much broader demographic than you might expect. Particularly at the festival we get people who judge the band, not on its history, but on its contemporary impact. The fact that we've been going on decade after decade doesn't matter, it's what the music is like on the night. That's what the young people who come to see us appreciate."

Simon doesn't believe folk music will ever become a mainstream interest. Thanks to attractive talented youngsters, though, it will continue to go through high profile phases.

"At the moment it's not generating pots and pots of money for the people who participate in it. It's the same size audience that it's always been but it's much more attractive and sexy in a journalistic way because of people like your own Seth Lakeman, who is very high profile and fabulous. People like him take the music out of the glass cabinet."

Simon, too, seized the music from the glass cabinet in his day. In fact you could say he and other band members smashed said glass cabinet to smithereens.

"I remember when we started interpreting folk songs with an electric band – it felt like you'd broken into the library and stolen a book. It had been safely put in a cabinet under glass but now it was out in the open."

For the sake of four decades of fabulous Fairport folk rock sounds, thank goodness he did.

"I was born in Fairport and I will probably die in it – but not too soon," he laughed. "It's amazing that something that was just a kind of hobby when I was school boy has given me a living. You can't say it's a job now, it's definitely a career."

● Fairport Convention are at the Landmark Theatre in Ilfracombe on Tuesday February 3 at 8pm. Tickets: £18. Box office: 01271 324242. Fairport Convention: www.fairportconvention.com