Xmas Revue, Broad Arrow Boys

Title: The Broad Arrow Boys Xmas Revue Seeing is Believing

Concert Programme Date: 1954 

Creator: prisoners at H.M. Prison Pentridge 

Format: Printed programme booklet 

Collection: Pentridge Prison Online Museum

Donated by Dr Peter White

This programme relates to a 1954 performance by the Broad Arrow Boys, a prisoner concert and entertainment group at H.M. Prison Pentridge. The programme provides evidence of organised cultural and recreational life within the prison during the mid-twentieth century, including music, performance and variety entertainment.

The name Broad Arrow Boys refers to the broad arrow mark historically associated with government property, convict clothing and prison-issued items, becoming closely linked with imprisonment and penal institutions.

Material relating to the Broad Arrow Boys is limited, making this programme an important record of prisoner recreation, creativity and social life inside Pentridge.

Of particular interest, the reverse side of the programme contains Hard Times, Vol. 2 No. 1, dated 26 December 1954. The earliest known issue of Hard Times located by the museum dates to 1946 and described itself as a newspaper “fully prepared by prisoners, and printed on the premises.” No additional issues have presently been identified by the museum.

Together, surviving programmes, newspaper references and Hard Times suggest the Broad Arrow Boys formed an enduring entertainment tradition within Pentridge from at least the mid-1940s through to 1954. The material also indicates that prisoners were involved not only in performances, but in writing, printing and producing publications within prison workshops.