BBC's Dancing on the Edge - The Irony of Stephen Poliakoff's Craftaphobia

Craftaphobia is defined as a irrational fear of freemasons. Freemasons are behind corn circles, Area 51 is nothing to do with us, and we did not fake the moon landings. As far as I know Jay-Z is not a freemason (He's too cool) and neither is Barrack Obama. That stuff on the one dollar note? It's a coincidence.

I have written before on this blog of the BBC's craftaphobic leanings, despite its claim to be impartial. Fortunately that benchmark of television has reigned it is more ridiculous notions about freemasonry over the years. However, I have to take exception to Dancing on Edge as yet another example of some of the superstitious twaddle that surrounds freemasonry.

The performances were outstanding. The music was superb. The sets were spectacular. The costumes were fabulous. However, just to provide an extra dimension writer Stephen Poliakoff provided an extra sub-plot. I mean, Nazis, Freemasons, jazz can it get more compelling?

It seems the murderer of Jessica was the rather unhinged Julian. Ultimately he shoots himself after confessing to her murder. Good closure. Julian gets his come uppance and Louis is vindicated and everybody else walks away with their reputations in tact, if completely changed and shaken by the experience.

Rather it is the events that lead up to this that I take exception to. It had already been established that Julian had joined freemasonry. Let's ignore the fact that he had one of the fastest progressions in masonic history (joining and then becoming an officer in such a short space of time). Let's ignore the fact that, for an officer, he was incorrectly dressed (he had an officer's cuffs on, but not a collar). Let's ignore the fact that he was in possession of piece of Lodge property (the trowel is part of the inner workings, not appropriate for a for a Master Mason) which he launched at Stanley just after joining. Let's concentrate on the alibi that his fellow masons created.

As Julian was a Master Mason he will have taken an obligation. Part of this has become an urban myth as it is literally a half truth.  The third degree obligation talks about how, hand-over-back I will protect a Master Mason's honour. Taken out of context this sounds like a freemason will literally bend over backwards to protect a fellow mason. The full context actually means that Master Masons will not tolerate slander when a mason is not there to defend himself.

Whilst we will also protect another mason's secrets as our own, the crunch that is missing, the other half of the truth, if you like, reads:

Murder, treason, felony and all other crimes contrary to the Laws of God or the Ordinances of the Realm being at all times most especially excepted.

Clearly this is something that has escaped Poliakoff's attention. If the freemasons were lying about an alibi, that ultimately led to a murder they were certainly not acting as freemasons. In fact they were acting in direct contradiction to the third degree obligation. Nowadays they would face masonic discipline for such an obstruction of justice.

Whilst racism, overt and implied, is a central part of the narrative, Poliakoff has also, rather ironically, employed a wildly inaccurate and negative stereotype to put his point across about the establishment being a closed group. It is a shame that so much attention was paid to costumes, music and sets when a basic part of the sub-plot is fundamentally flawed.