After 50 years, the drama goes on for the show that's still right up our street

The cobbles and the Rover's Return will no doubt survive the disaster wrought by a tram crashing through the viaduct wall at the end of the Street and smashing into shops, homes, cars and people. In a week of high drama, the community will come together in grief. Secrets will gasp to the surface through the dust. A baby will be born and a wedding will go ahead despite the rubble.

What is a soap disaster for if not to clear out some dead wood, and the Corrie way of doing it is so much more effective (and wholesale) than having someone's hair catch fire on a birthday cake. Every viewer will have a couple of candidates in mind for the chop – or the horrific crushed-by-tram scene – but we will also be hoping that our favourite characters survive. While it's probably time for gentle Emily Bishop to go to the great laundromat in the sky, I wouldn't like to see resident lush Carla Connor depart just yet.

Apart from Saturday night talent shows, the soaps are TV's most reliable earners, and so the marking of 50 years warranted the first of what will no doubt be a series of birthday bashes. This was no ordinary party – the location being the actual Street set at Granada in Manchester, where filming goes on 50 weeks of the year, producing 10 episodes every 14 days.

Trestle tables down the centre of the cobbles, bunting, check table cloths, Holland's meat and potato pies, sticky toffee and chocolate pudding. There's Jack and Vera''s house with its hideous cladding, and The Kabin, with ads in the window for rooms to let and exercise classes. We get a whistle-stop tour of the interior sets – including a thrilling glimpse into the true beigey awfulness of Deirdre and Ken Barlow's kitchen, a reflection of the beigeness of their relationship.

There's been a three-line-whip, and the stars are out to schmooze. In between the skinny young females who seem to populate every other house these days are older faces, including Betty Williams (Turpin) and Ken – who's been with the soap since its first episode, when he was the student who came home full of airs and graces to the Street to find he didn't like having his bread already buttered and a cup of tea served with his dinner.

Snoot or not, Ken is a babe magnet (27 on-screen shenanigans, and he's only in his 70s...) He enjoys the attentions of a posse of female reporters from as far afield as Melbourne and Toronto. "I do hope I don't get in the way of the tram. I'm happy to stay in the Street, so long as my family continues to remain dysfunctional."

Betty Driver, who plays Betty, Queen of the Hotpot (at the Rovers), soldiers on over her stove at the age of 90. She's a marvel of womanhood with knees 70 years younger than the rest of her. But she can't remember the recipe for her signature dish – nor how much it costs. There could be bits of old tyre in there for all we know... But never mind, it's not on the menu today.

"I still work because I just adore it," says Betty. "I get lovely letters – a lot of them from young children asking me to be their 'Nana'. What I hate is when a character dies. We recently recorded the death of Jack (Duckworth) and it was heartrending."

There have been 114 deaths so far in Corrie – including 14 murders and seven suicides. There would have been 88 weddings, if 13 hadn't hit the buffers before the "I dos". Many famous thesps have passed this way, including Sir Ben Kingsley, Sir Ian McKellen and the fragrant Joanna Lumley (yes, it was Ken again). The show is about a group of ordinary folk carried along by pithy scripts that engage emotion and portray events that are realistic enough to be believable but are writ large. Corrie is bigger than anything or anyone in it.

Tony Warren, the programme's originator, wrote many of the early scripts, half of which were performed live in the first few years. Now in his 70s, he still keeps a close eye on the show, and has a monthly lunch with producer Phil Collinson to discuss goings-on at every address in the Street.

"I worked on it full-time for nine years before," says Warren. "When we started, no-one had a phone in their house or a car or passport. By the 1990s life had become so much more colourful, and we've always reflected changes in society. Today there is so much more talk about sex and relationships, and while the Street doesn't reflect the news of the day, it moves as the world moves on.

"People love it because they get involved in the lives of others and form an affection for the characters. Some viewers watch it intensely during a certain period of their life, then go away and come back again years later as regulars. You can get back into it very quickly."

Michael Le Vell joined Corrie as mechanic Kevin Webster 27 years ago when he was first seen thumbing a lift and ended up fixing Alf Roberts's MG. In between more interesting storylines, poor Kevin is often to be seen in the background of the Rovers delivering the line "Pint please, Betty."

Michael admits there have been a few spells of Kevin being a bit part player for so long that he has considered leaving. "Whenever I've thought of it things have then picked up and I get a great storyline, like the love triangle going on at the moment between Kev, Molly and Sally. "

Is Corrie hard work? "Yeah, it can be very hard work, especially when you're bringing up children on-set. But even when you're working flat out, there's a buzz about the place. And it's been good to me."

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