The REAL Stephen Fry story on WTF...

• ‘Comedy is easy.’ Tracy Morgan

• There’s been a lot of coverage this week for Stephen Fry’s heartbreaking revelation of his suicide attempt last year. But the interview with Richard Herring during his Leicester Square Podcast,. wasn’t all sadness – far from it. So why no coverage of Herring’s question to him: ‘Have you ever tried to suck your own cock?’ In a worryingly thorough response, Fry discussed the various techniques – ‘the forward curl and the backwards somersault’ but admitted he’d never done because he was cursed with a ‘short, stubby... tongue. So near, and yet so far.’ But he did admit:  ‘I’ve seen it done... obviously.’

• Edinburgh Fringe comedy critic Kate Copstick has little time for the hyperbole of the festival. She told blogger John Fleming:  ‘I cannot remember a time when seeing a poster slathered in five star strips from ifailedgcseenglishbutnowigetfreeseats.biz.twat made me want to do anything other than smack the act in the crotch with a rolled up copy of Pointless Freeloading Fuckwits and How To Spot Them.’

• Mark Thomas admits he has a motive for appearing at a benefit to build an open-air theatre in Brighton on Sunday week. Not just because it was the dying wish of local playwright and alternative cabaret pioneer Adrian Bunting - but because he hopes they will book him once it’s built. ‘I helped fucking pay for the bloody thing. Of course I expect a fucking gig,’ he told the local Latest 7 magazine. The benefit, which also features Stewart Lee and Tim Vine, is at the Brighton Dome.

• Here’s a guy called Freddie from Whitley Bay telling a couple of jokes. We assume.

• South African comic Mark Sampson is to spend the next years driving round the circumference of Africa in a  camper-van  run on cooking oil. He and his wife and two children, 12 and 8,  will stop in about 40 countries as he tries  to break the Guinness World Record for the longest journey on alternative fuel.

• Meanwhile, Ross Noble spent yesterday in Tunbridge Wells firing custard into the mouths of strangers from a water gun.

• Yes, this is Miranda Hart in Diversity. She joined the group  at this year’s Channel 4 Comedy Gala – to be screened tonight – after Alan Carr, inset, interrupted their performance to point out that they aren’t quite ‘diverse enough’. Cue both Miranda and Warwick Davis  to show off their footwork.

• Meanwhile, Miranda has topped a poll to find Doctor Who fans' favourite choice for a female Time Lord, narrowly beating former Tardis companion Billie Piper.

• John Cleese has been hooked up to tubes and wires, to be tested for a sleep disorder. The 73-year-old posted a picture on Twitter of all the apparatus to test if he has the condition sleep apnoea, which causes an obstruction of the airways, hampering breathing and disrupting rest.

• Daniel Radcliffe prepared for his lead role in the West End production of The Cripple of Inishmaan by watching comedian Laurence Clark. The former Harry Potter star watched the stand-up’s documentary Don’t Drop the Baby and said: ‘It’s about a couple with cerebral palsy who are getting ready to have their second child. They want to have it by natural birth. That really showed me. Our perception is that their lives must be an incredible struggle all time, but actually it is just their life. They don’t particularly think about it on a day-to-day basis.’

• Tweets of the week
James Martin (@Pundamentalism ): FUN FACT: A.A. Gill has a little brother called A.A.A. Gill.
Jason ‘NickMotown’ (@NickMotown ): Yes, that bloke who invented the invisibility cloak had his 15 minutes of fame, but where is he now?
Chris Addison (@mrchrisaddison ): Something something South Pacific holiday. Something something Atholl protected. #jokes

Published: 7 Jun 2013