Dickens Christmas honest is again in Bay Space — now with COVID-era drive-thru format

Old Marley was dead as a nail on the door, as was the Great Dickens Christmas Fair, which had turned the Cow Palace exhibition hall into lamp-lit Victorian London until the COVID-19 lockdown.

But on Sunday, in some kind of Christmas miracle in Daly City, old Marley was back, ghost-white, shaking his chains as he squinted at the sun behind a rolled-up garage door. “These are the chains I’ve worn in life,” he moaned to his audience, which consisted of two parents and two children in an SUV with the windows down and iPhones in record mode.

Drive Thru Dickens’ London, the pandemic mobile version of the annual holiday event, was opened to socially distant believers willing to quell disbelief in their vehicles with the engine running. The visitors ordered fish and chips or a high tea service and then drove through a tableau with four scenes from “A Christmas Carol”, which were performed on stages at the entrances to the exhibition hall. After crossing the perimeter, they picked up their food from the window front and then parked in front of a main stage for a musical performance. They ate in their cars as if this were the long-gone Geneva drive-in theater next to the Cow Palace, which had a dual function.

“I almost thought we were going through for our COVID vaccinations,” said Trason Basconis, who drove over from Piedmont with his wife Sarah. He was skeptical until they drove to the first tableau to visit Old Marley in Fezziwig’s warehouse. By the time he turned the corner to the London Docks, he’d forgotten about the orange traffic cones and the winter sun. He would have forgotten the car too, but he honked the horn to the tune of the sea song “Haul Boys Haul”.

“I’m in the Christmas spirit and it’s nice to see it’s back,” he said through the car window. “We missed it last year.” So did the performers, who even broke the character to encourage audience participation.

“This is the first time that someone has honked with us,” said guitarist Anna Benincasa-Morales. “He was on time too.”

Spectators experience the annual Dickens Christmas market as “Drive Thru Dickens London” in the Cow Palace.

Mike Kai Chen / Special on The Chronicle

An hour spent on the tarmac in London in the 1880s was $ 25 a car, not including food. The 250 actors and performers had to work their show for the 500 carloads per day, which were let through at intervals to avoid bottlenecks on the stages.

“How are we doing on this beautiful day in London,” said actor Scott Lundholm with a thick Cockney accent aimed at the open windows of the first passengers of the day.

Ludlow spent 20 years as a senior chimney sweep and was despondent in 2020, spending his first vacation season with no soot in his beard.

“Last year Christmas was sad and boring without her,” he said.

“In the Cow Palace it’s like stepping into a Dickensian Christmas card,” said Lundholm, stepping out of character for a moment and turning off his Cockney Lilt. “Here we get to know a whole new kind of improvisation in front of people in cars.”

Tom Westlake, who portrays Marley and has been at the show all 38 seasons, described her as “acting in a diorama. It’s a different kind of environmental theater. “

In a normal season, 700 actors and performers are employed by the fair and pay a daily rate equal to that of community theaters for 11 performances over five weekends. This year, 250 performers are working on just seven days over four weekends. People who get the jobs keep them and that has minimized turnover.

In addition to the challenge of a drive-through fair, this year the organizers faced a call from more than 200 performers and thousands of guests to boycott the fair over demands for measures against racism, harassment and sexism, which some performers and crew members learn about to have. A petition in support of the action and the request for a list of security requirements has more than 3,000 signatures.

In response, Red Barn Productions, the family business that founded the Renaissance Fair in Novato in 1970, has committed to increasing diversity as soon as the fair is up and running.

“They’re asking us to make changes faster than we can in a pandemic,” said Kevin Patterson, second generation producer. “We are committed to making it even more integrative in the future.”

The opening weekend was sold out, 500 cars a day. On Sundays at 1 p.m. there was a line-up of vehicles – and the outdoor format was not without breakdowns.

“This show is as wonderful as ever,” said Patterson, “but we are a decidedly Victorian event that is struggling with a digital food ordering system.” This led to delivery delays and even some complaints. But the wait for food was longer in London in the 1860s.

“We missed it last year when we heard about the drive through we jumped on it,” said Ada Wong, who was in the back seat with husband Jeremy Wong and three hypnotized daughters under 7. “This is how we start the Christmas season. We come to the Dickens Fair and then we go home and decorate our tree. “

Sam Whiting is a contributor to the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: swhiting@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @samwhitingsf