I am aware of two plays which are loosely based on Donald Crowhurst, several songs and a poem.
One play, Jet Lag, combines the story of Crowhurst with the story of a mother who has to repeatedly fly from the USA to Amsterdam with her son because of a custody battle with the child’s father. After 160 trips in the space of one year the mother dies of Jet Lag.
Another play, Daniel Pelican seems to be a bizarre retelling of Crowhurst’s story set in the 1920’s. I am not really sure why you would move the time period to there, but never mind.
The poem is of some interest; Donald Finkel’s Wake of the Electron, although amazon have this listed at £52 and I can’t find much more about it other than brief synopsis.
In other news, I had a productive session in uni today, it gave me several new thought tangents of places I may like to take this play- primarily tangents relating to the seeming split personality of Donald Crowhurst….On days like this I get really inspired and want to write the thing, unfortunately, it is such a deep story I fear I may drown in it (for want of a better metaphor) if I just start writing it now without refining my thoughts on the story! Another tangent takes me off remembering Life of Pi, similarly a story of floating at sea but with a religious metaphor- though doesn’t Crowhurst’s story have religion? I seem to have been overlooking the fact that he begins the story as an Atheist and ends the story not just believing in God, but believing himself to be God- surely that is taking belief to a whole new level? I must not forget his atheism!
Anyway, above are two images of Crowhurst. I quite like the contrast between the two, at sea he is playing the hero, he seems confident, putting on a show for the lens, whereas the other picture may be more grounded in reality