{"id":6339,"date":"2016-06-09T20:13:24","date_gmt":"2016-06-09T19:13:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=6339"},"modified":"2016-10-07T12:10:03","modified_gmt":"2016-10-07T11:10:03","slug":"the-extras","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=6339","title":{"rendered":"The Extras"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We practise our smiles under white diffusers<br \/>\nlarger than sunbeds. We are the extras, paid in plastic<br \/>\ntrays of bread and moist sandwich fillings,<br \/>\nflagons of instant coffee and saccharined juice.<br \/>\nWe do as we\u2019re told, laugh towards a glass eye,<br \/>\ncapturing our imperfect dentistry.<br \/>\nWe are en masse, this pack of us, hungry<br \/>\nto be chosen, yet trying to be bland.<br \/>\n(Some of us find this easy.) One is moved<br \/>\nfrom the front; she would have been featured,<br \/>\nbut her dress is too purple, too shiny.<br \/>\nShe is to remember, she is simply background,<\/p>\n<p>darling; for we are the extras.<br \/>\nThe real stars beam with their squeaky teeth \u2013<br \/>\nthe same baby-girl blondes<br \/>\nwith heavy eyes and plump, biteable lips.<br \/>\nThey earn so much more than us,<br \/>\nrelaxing in their comfy chairs; we are 40<br \/>\nto a dressing room, hot bulbs heckling<br \/>\nour sunken skin as we snack on chocolate,<br \/>\nease our boredom on caffeine and twitter,<br \/>\nwhile our agents snaffle their 15 per cent. <\/p>\n<p>The new girl asks: <em>Is this a broken lunch?<br \/>\nNot on these rates, love.<\/em> There\u2019s so much civility,<br \/>\nfor we are the extras. We read <em>The Mirror<\/em>,<br \/>\ncalling out crossword clues in repressed voices.<br \/>\nWhen we tire of this, we turn in<br \/>\non ourselves; a hierarchy of <em>Holby<\/em>, <em>EastEnders<\/em>, <em>Casualty<\/em>.<br \/>\nA tall man boasts of his walk on in Star Wars.<br \/>\nWe quieten, try not to look<br \/>\nimpressed, stare into our mini screens<br \/>\nas if someone really loves us.<br \/>\nThen we\u2019re back on set, the same lipstick brush<br \/>\nwiped over 80 paid-for smiles. <\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We practise our smiles under white diffusers larger than sunbeds. We are the extras, paid in plastic trays of bread and moist sandwich fillings, flagons of instant coffee and saccharined juice. We do as we\u2019re told, laugh towards a glass eye, capturing our imperfect dentistry. We are en masse, this pack of us, hungry to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":153,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[333,334],"tags":[337],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.2.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Extras - The Manchester Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=6339\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Extras - The Manchester Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"We practise our smiles under white diffusers larger than sunbeds. We are the extras, paid in plastic trays of bread and moist sandwich fillings, flagons of instant coffee and saccharined juice. We do as we\u2019re told, laugh towards a glass eye, capturing our imperfect dentistry. We are en masse, this pack of us, hungry to [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=6339\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Manchester Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-06-09T19:13:24+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2016-10-07T11:10:03+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Katrina Naomi\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Katrina Naomi\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=6339\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=6339\",\"name\":\"The Extras - The Manchester Review\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2016-06-09T19:13:24+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-10-07T11:10:03+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/#\/schema\/person\/7990d638db4fec96f314c7dc83b4ab39\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=6339#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=6339\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=6339#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The Extras\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/#website\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/\",\"name\":\"The Manchester Review\",\"description\":\"The Manchester Review\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/#\/schema\/person\/7990d638db4fec96f314c7dc83b4ab39\",\"name\":\"Katrina Naomi\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/wp-includes\/images\/blank.gif\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/wp-includes\/images\/blank.gif\",\"caption\":\"Katrina Naomi\"},\"description\":\"Katrina Naomi\u2019s poetry has appeared in the TLS, The Spectator and The Poetry Review, and has been broadcast on Radio 4. Her second collection, The Way the Crocodile Taught Me, has just been published by Seren (2016), following the pamphlet Hooligans (Rack Press, 2015), inspired by the Suffragettes. Previous publications include: The Girl with the Cactus Handshake (Templar Poetry), which was shortlisted for the London New Writers Award, Charlotte Br\u00f6nte\u2019s Corset (Br\u00f6nte Society), and Lunch at the Elephant and Castle (Templar Poetry) which won the Templar Poetry Pamphlet Competition. Katrina holds a PhD in creative writing from Goldsmiths, is a Hawthornden Fellow, and has received awards from the Royal Literary Fund and Arts Council England. She lives in Cornwall, runs Poetry Surgeries for the Poetry Society, and is a freelance tutor for Falmouth University and the Poetry School. http:\/\/www.katrinanaomi.co.uk\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?author=153\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Extras - The Manchester Review","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=6339","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Extras - The Manchester Review","og_description":"We practise our smiles under white diffusers larger than sunbeds. We are the extras, paid in plastic trays of bread and moist sandwich fillings, flagons of instant coffee and saccharined juice. We do as we\u2019re told, laugh towards a glass eye, capturing our imperfect dentistry. 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