Our approach to racemic cytisine has relied on two key steps: (i) the N-selective alkylation of a 6-halopyridone (to establish C(10)–N(1) bond) and (ii) the intramolecular α-arylation of a lactam to establish the C(6)–(7) bond and complete the tricyclic core of the target. This provides a direct and highly convergent entry to cytisine, and this paper reports the implementation of this strategy, together with a discussion of the key issues involved. ... The synthetic route is ...