Ricky Martin hosts this CBBC hybrid that grafts sitcom plotting onto step-by-step art demos. Each 28-minute episode strings together sticky-note sketches, viewer video calls and a climactic large-scale build, usually from an absurd quantity of one material: clingfilm skyscrapers, coin portraits, papier-mâché kaiju. Martin’s friends, including graphic artist Gavin Strange and presenter Michelle Ackerley, supply comic distractions while the camera keeps returning to the makes. A running gag sees Ricky jolt awake in horror after the final craft collapses; series five extends the chaos beyond the bedroom.
Dot to Dot Productions devised the format after CBBC passed on Martin’s earlier pilot Ricky’s Radical Reinventions. Controller Cheryl Taylor wanted a fresh art brand, so the company ditched their proposed revival of Totally Rubbish and developed what Martin pitched as “The Naked Chef meets art meets Jackass”. The working title Art Monkey survived only in early press notes. Five series, 55 episodes, were filmed between 2015 and 2019, with compilation cuts repackaged as Nine Minute Ninja for the CBBC app. No further episodes have been commissioned since 2019.
Production Details
CBBC / 5 Seasons / 55 Episodes / 2015 - Present
Created by: Nick Hutchings Howard Davidson (2017-present)
Writer(s): Nick Hutchings Howard Davidson (2017-present)
Producer(s): Nick Hutchings Richard Hunt (2017-present)
Main Cast
Ricky Martin as Art Ninja
Gavin Strange as Gavin
Sarah Matthews as Sarah
Richard Thorne as Rich
