Petaluma’s Jeffrey Weissman in Dickens Land

Jeffrey Weissman has just stuck a dead pheasant in my face.

Well, its tail feathers, anyway.

“Did someone order the pheasant? The pheasant?” Weissman shouts, striding about through Charles Dickens’ ornately decorated parlor, a meticulously designed “performance space” that is currently filled with historical figures. These include various members of Dickens’ family. In fact, I’ve just been chatting with Katie Dickens, the author’s oldest daughter.

“Don’t say I said so, but I do believe I’m the favorite,” she just told me, adding that the young Queen Victoria and her husband Prince Albert are rumored to be attending soon. “I’m all agog,” she says.

This is when Weissman appears with the prop bird on a plate, scampering through the guests at this opening day “press tea,” making sure to “accidentally” tickle my nose with pheasant feathers as often as possible.

And so begins another year of the Great Dickens Christmas Fair, and though thick, smoky air in South San Francisco has diminished attendance a bit on this first of six weekends, there is plenty of energy and excitement among the 700 street performers who portray real historical figures and imaginary characters at the popular annual extravaganza. For the most part, the historical folks don’t interact much with the imaginary ones. Just moments ago, Victorian-era scientist Michael Faraday (Sonoma County’s Eric Skagerberg), standing outside the Adventurers’ Club - a hub of historical folks hobnobbing and giving readings - reacted to the passing spectacle of The Ghost of Christmas Present by saying, “Oh my! Did you just feel a draft? Brrrrrr.”

Weissman seems to be an exception to such rules.

A longtime Petaluman, acclaimed comic actor and cult-level movie figure - having memorably appeared in a key role in two of the “Back to the Future” movies - Weissman is currently playing Alfred Jingle, a colorful character from Dickens’ first novel “The Pickwick Papers.” In addition to directing a number of memorable scenes from the book, which are staged here and there throughout the fair as the day goes on, Weissman, as Jingle, leads walking tours of “London.” Dickens “Good old town” has been recreated inside the Cow Palace in Daly City, continuing a tradition that began in the Bay Area in 1970.

Weissman has been appearing at the Fair off and on since 1978.

“I started playing Jingle in 1980,” he told me, earlier in the week. “But then I moved to L.A. for several years, doing movie stuff. When I moved to Petaluma later on, I did a number of Dickens Fairs, until I was cast in an immersive “Polar Express” attraction in Sacramento. So for a long time, I could only visit the Fair when it happened to open a week or so before “Polar Express” did. So, this year marks my return to the Fair, and I have to say, it’s great fun to be back, and to be part of bringing the Pickwickians back to life too.”

In addition to performing as the unscrupulous, chatterbox con man Jingle - often in disguise as Captain Charles Fitz-Marshall - Weissman has also directed a number of scenes from “The Pickwick Papers.” These include a raucous trial scene that is staged each day on the floor of Fezziwig’s Warehouse (where dancing takes place through much of the day).

“I found a script for the trial scene in the archives of Red Barn,” Weissman explained. Red Barn Productions, which also produced the legendary Renaissance Pelasure Faire in Novato, is the creator and producer of the Dickens Fair. “The script was so much fun, I decided to include it in the various Pickwick scenes we do as the day progresses.”

“The Pickwick Papers,” for those who never read it, is the story of the “Pickwick Club,” an association of wealthy gentlemen who decide to wander the country making a “study” of the practices and viewpoints of the common people. Misadventures ensue, a few key ones being recreated for the entertainment of visitors to the Fair (many of whom are wearing masks on opening day, despite the relatively fresh air inside the Cow Palace).

Not long after the tea at Dickens house, Weissman’s Jingle breathlessly introduced his tour party of the author himself - “That’s an exclusive! Charles Dickens himself on the Jingle tour,” he says. “Tell your friends!” - the group finds itself at the Adventurers’ Club, where Weissman passes along a request for Edgar Alan Poe to come out and meet his charges as well. Inside, we catch a glimpse of “Frankenstein” author Mary Shelley, speaking with H.G. Wells and Harriet Beecher Stowe.

When Poe appears (played by musician Lee Presson, of the popular swing band Lee Presson and the Nails), he spends a few moments trading quips with Jingle before inviting the crowd back to hear him read a story later in the day.

“If you’re lucky, I’ll read “The Telltale Heart,” Poe says. “If you’re very lucky, it’ll be “The Raven.”

After Poe-Presson returns to the interior of the club, Jingle-Weissman grins widely.

“That was another exclusive,” he says, loudly enough for all to hear on the busy streets of “London.” “Edgar Alan Poe, on the Jingle tour. My tour. Tell your friends.”