| “ | "Forgive my levity, Mr. Cooch. But when you come to know me better, you will learn that neither health, nor safety are among my primary concerns." | „ |
Leslie is a recurring villain in the BBC television sketch show, "That Mitchell and Webb Look". He is a wealthy businessman, and owner of the 'Calippo Organisation', presumably a reference to the ice lolly brand of the same name, sold in the United Kingdom.
History
Little is revealed about Leslie's background or history. However, a prominent trait of his character is indulging himself in things that he feels perpetuate his gravitas and bring a demeanour of authority. This goes as far as compromising practicality and jeopardising his own pursuits to facilitate such things, such as using pedantic and ambiguous terminology to sound more like a traditional movie villain, or wishing to install elaborate modifications to his headquarters, for the same reason.
Appearance
One such instance would be telling his henchmen that Detective Harrison, presumably a detective investigating Leslie, and correctly suspecting him of wrongdoing, had "become a nuisance". The henchman played by Robert Webb pointed out that the terms were confusing for no reason, and mentions that such ambiguous terminology previously delayed their attempts to murder a Professor Ritson. It is however revealed in another sketch that one-liners used by Leslie are canonically scripted, being written by a hired team of comedians and fed to him via an earpiece. He and his enemy, 'Agent Suave' badly beat the writers in the car park of the casino after discovering they'd been writing jokes for both of them.
In another sketch, Leslie hired a contractor, Ryan Cooch, to install a rotating bookcase (later re-considered as a rotating fireplace because the bookcase was against a load-bearing wall) and trapdoors beneath a number of seats, leading to tanks of piranhas. Leslie becomes irritated when Cooch states that such modifications would need to be in accordance with health and safety.
Little is mentioned about Leslie's actual wrongdoings, although it is revealed that the Calippo Organisation, controlled by Leslie, plan to achieve world-domination. He is shown to have contempt for the lives of others, ordering the deaths of those who get in his way, and attempting to feed Hugo, a moral skeptic of his world-domination plan, to the piranhas installed by Ryan Cooch. However, various warnings, placed strategically to meet health and safety standards alert Hugo to the threat and he leaves before the trap door beneath his chair opens, despite Leslie's best efforts to convince him to remain seated.
Leslie is seen to be blessed with the remarkable feat of being able to deduce the weight of a cake to the nearest ounce simply through visual observation. Confident in this ability, he often gambles on this game, and enjoys gambling in general. Leslie is also revealed to be homosexual, suggesting to one of his henchman that they have intercourse after completing his mission, to which he agrees.