We propose a visco-plastic strain gradient plasticity theory for single crystals. The gradient enhancement is based on an equivalent plastic strain measure. Two physically equivalent variational settings for the problem are discussed: a direct formulation and an alternative version with an additional micromorphic-like field variable, which is coupled to the equivalent plastic strain by a Lagrange multiplier. The alternative formulation implies a significant reduction of nodal degrees of freedom. The local algorithm and element stiffness matrices of the finite-element discretization are discussed. Numerical examples illustrate the advantages of the alternative formulation in three-dimensional simulations of oligo-crystals. By means of the suggested formulation, complex boundary value problems of the proposed plastic strain gradient theory can be solved numerically very efficiently.