From unexpected colour to making clever environmental choices, Joanna Plant, an interiors specialist and tastemaker, shares her design intentions for the year ahead.

·What is your New Year design resolution?

I’d like to get out and look at things. The aim is to visit lots of houses and gardens for inspiration and see more exhibitions abroad. I love a house tour and try to find somewhere to go and look about whenever I travel outside London or abroad. I really appreciate seeing things first-hand these days.

·What was a highlight of 2023?

Selling my house of 22 years and having the improvement of a new property — very exciting to be doing a project for myself! What’s fantastic is to work with suppliers who have amazing collections to discover and those who allow us to change the colours or make changes to existing designs.

·What design ideas do you have that you hope to bring to fruition?

Happily, clients seem to be more responsive to having bolder paint plans and using more colours. We have been asking them to see how layering pattern can make a room more quiet and relaxing. I think that we are making our rooms look very nice by using a lot of decorative trims and accessories.

The professional life of 22-year-old David Bloomfield takes many shapes. You might see him as a bad-tempered businessman, a money-hungry nephew, a suspicious neighbour or a jealous husband. Sometimes he may be a murder victim — or he may be a cold-hearted killer. David is a member of an acting company called Nightshade, who create and perform “interactive murder mysteries”.

Although these events can be held in someone’s home, they usually take place in a hotel, where guests come for an evening or a weekend. Having planned out a story in which at least one character will be killed, the actors play the main parts themselves. There is no stage — the audience is part of the scene as the action unfolds. Members of the audience share meals and conversations with the characters, they can ask questions and they listen for clues. At the end, like Poirot or Miss Marple, they have to solve the mystery and work out who the killer is.

David has been working with Nightshade for two years. At school he studied drama and he had learned roles in school theatre productions. But he might never have thought of this particular job if he hadn’t had a stroke of luck. He explains, “I was working at weekends as a waiter at the Grange Hotel where the company performs regularly. I’d watched their performances and I knew how the event worked. So when one of the actors became ill, I volunteered to take his part. It was a last-minute decision and they were taking a big risk with me, but I must have done quite well because they invited me to stay with them for the rest of the season. And I’m still with them now.”

David is enthusiastic about his work. Mixing with the audience makes it a real challenge, he says, “Every event is different. You can’t just rely on a script like most actors and you never know quite what to expect. You have to be creative and quick-thinking to create a convincing character while keeping the mystery alive. I love all that. It must be great to work in films or on a TV mystery series like Poirot, but I know I’d miss what you get from interacting with a live audience.”